(LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. J 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f 



Holiness to the Loed. 



Rev. LEWIS R: DUNN, 

Author of "The Mission of the Spirit." 



And thou ahalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the 
engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LOED. Exod. xxviii, 86. 









3SN»igP 



NEW YORK: ^4 

NELSON & PHILLIPS. 

CINCINNATI : HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

1874. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

NELSON & PHILLIPS, 
in the Ofnce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE 



r I ^HE deep and wide-spread interest which 
-*- is now manifested among many evangel- 
ical and earnest Christians on the subject of 
Christian holiness, is the only apology of the 
Author for the publication of this book. With 
this newly-awakened interest, various ques- 
tions of great practical importance are being 
raised, which need and demand a clear, intel- 
ligent, and scriptural answer. It will be read- 
ily seen, that an error on any of the vital 
points relating to this great truth may either 
lead to long wanderings in the wilderness of 
" sorrows and sins and doubts and fears," or 
into vagaries, or fanaticisms, which would prove 
a ruin to souls and an injury to the Church. 
If, on the one hand, the holiness of the angels, 
or of unfallen Adam, be regarded as the stand- 
ard of this great experience, then all effort for 
its attainment would be paralyzed, and all hope 
of its enjoyment would be lost. On the other 



4 Preface. 

hand, if there be loose views of the require- 
ments of " the perfect law of liberty," and of 
the design of the provisions and promises of 
the Gospel, they would lead to a sentimental 
latitudinarianism, or to a deadly Antinomianism. 
What every earnest Christian wants to know 
is, May I be entirely holy in this life ? May the 
depth of my depravity, as well as the guilt of 
my sins, be washed away in " the blood of the 
Lamb ?" Is it possible for the impurity and 
defilement of sin, as well as its power and 
condemnation, to be removed from my soul ? 
And, if so, how may I come to realize and 
enjoy this great salvation? These inquiries 
the Author endeavors to answer in this vol- 
ume. In so doing, he has endeavored to avoid 
a controversial method of treating these ques- 
tions, and merely to state the points involved 
with all fairness and candor, avoiding any 
thing that would offend the views, or even 
injure the feelings, of those who may think 
differently from him. Well satisfied as the 
Author is that entire holiness is the bond 
which is to unite in one all the followers of 
Jesus in the Church of the future, his earnest 
prayer is, that wherever his book may find a 



Preface. 5 

reader, it will awaken in him a longing, insatia- 
ble desire for the possession of this unspeak- 
able gift ; and that thus, in proportion as the 
holy flame shall spread and become intensified, 
will be the fusion of all hearts into one mass of 
divine love. 

In writing thus, however, the Author desires 
not to be understood as intimating that even 
the universal prevalence of this great truth, or 
the universal enjoyment of this blessed expe- 
rience, would destroy all denominationalism, or 
obliterate all distinctions and differences of 
views, or of forms of expression ; but it would 
remove that which has been the bane of denom- 
inationalism, the " odium theologicum" which 
has marred the beauty and hindered the effect- 
iveness of the Church of Christ. This is cer- 
tainly no time for us to waste our energies in 
the discussion of metaphysical subtleties, or to 
revive ancient antagonisms, or to renew gladia- 
torial conflicts in the theological arena. The 
enemies which assail us are too multitudinous, 
too earnest, and too powerful to permit of any 
divisions in our camp. With Romanism sum- 
moning all her energies for a decisive and final 
conflict ; with the upspringing of Rationalism, 



6 Preface. 

Pantheism, and Materialism on every hand ; 
with the increase of the volume of the fiery 
stream of intemperance, which in its fearful 
course is spreading desolation and ruin every- 
where, and with the open defiance which is 
now manifest against the law of the Sabbath, 
as well as the alarming desecration of that 
holy day — we certainly need such a union of 
hearts and of hands as will enable us not 
only to meet the shock, but also, by a mighty, 
united, aggressive movement, to triumphantly 
plant the symbol of our faith on the proud dis- 
mantled fortresses of our foes. Our union and 
our strength will be proportioned to the clear- 
ness with which " Holiness to the Lord " is in- 
scribed on our banners, and engraved upon our 
breastplates and our crowns. Only when the 
Church shall come up " out of the wilderness, 
leaning on the arm of her Beloved, bright as 
the sun and clear as the moon," will she be ter- 
rible to her enemies " as an army with banners." 

Lewis R. Dunn. 

Pater son, New Jersey. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. Holiness — What is it ? 9 

II. The Holiness of God 17 

III. Holiness in Unfallen Beings 33 

IV. Holiness in Redeemed Fallen Beings 41 

V. Holiness the Ordained Purpose of Christ's 

Sufferings and Death 67 

VI. Holiness Demanded and Promised 79 

VII. Holiness the Purpose of all Religions, and 

the Central Truth of all Revelation.. 89 

VIII. Holiness — how Obtained 99 

IX. Holiness in the Character and Life 119 

X. Holiness and Testimony 139 

XI. Holiness, as Related to Christian Work. . 151 

XII. Holiness and Humility 169 

XIII. Holiness — how Perfected 181 

XIV. Holiness the Source of the Highest Bliss 

OF WHICH THE SOUL IS CAPABLE I95 

XV. Holiness the Great Want of the Church. 205 



" The ministry of Aaron is ended. His ephod, with its 
gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine-twined linen, 
and cunning work, has faded and dropped. The curious 
girdle and its chains of wreathen gold are broken. The 
breastplate of judgment that lay against his heart, and its 
fourfold row of triple jewels — of sardius, topaz, and car- 
buncle — of emerald, sapphire, and diamond — of ligure, agate, 
and amethyst — of beryl, onyx, and jasper — has been crushed 
and lost. The pomegranates are cast aside like untimely 
fruit. The golden bells are silent. Even the mitre, with its 
sacred signet and the grace of the fashion of it, has perished. 
All the outward glory and beauty of the Hebrew worship 
which the Lord commanded Moses has vanished into the 
eternal splendors of the Gospel and been fulfilled in Christ. 
What teaching has it left ? What other than this — that we 
are to engrave our ' Holiness to the Lord' first on the heart, 
and then on all that the heart goes out into, through the brain 
and the hand."-— Bishop Huntington. 

" Holiness is not a vague abstraction, a visionary ideal, or 
somethiug too sublime for mortals ; but the carrying out in 
life of the principles of our faith. It is not gloom, austerity, 
asceticism, the hair-cloth, and the cell, nor entire absorbed- 
ness in divine contemplation and adoring raptures, but the 
formation in us of the mind which was in Christ Jesus." — 
Bishop Lee, of Delaware, 



HOLINESS TO THE LORD. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOLINESS WHAT IS IT ? 

IT is essential, at the outset, to define what 
is meant by Holiness ; for it is presumable 
that a term so frequently employed in the Word 
of God would have a clear, fixed, unmistak- 
able import, and that its signification would be 
such as his creatures can understand — at least 
in so far as concerns their present and endless 
well-being. Hence, in all the principal lan- 
guages of the world, this word has the follow- 
ing significations : " Pure, clean, free from the 
defilement of sin, sacred, consecrated." Mr. 
Webster, our great American lexicographer, de- 
fines the word as denoting "whole, complete, 
entire, sound ; unimpaired in a moral sense ; 
pure in heart, temper, disposition ; hallowed 
consecrated, set apart to God." 

There are, then, we readily perceive, two 
great elements included in this state, or expe- 



io Holiness to the Lord. 

rience. The one is negative, the other is posi- 
tive ; the one what it excludes, the other what 
it embraces. There is also in the Scriptures a 
use of the word which, as applied to the Jews, 
and subsequently to all Christians, had reference 
merely to their external conditions. Hence, all 
the Jews are called "holy," because of their 
separation from the Gentiles ; and all Christians 
are called " holy," or " saints," because they be- 
long to the Christian community, and without 
respect to their moral condition. It is, how- 
ever, in its moral sense that in this treatise 
we especially regard it. And in this aspect 
we see — 

First, it excludes all sin ; not merely the 
willful violation of the law of God, but also 
all moral impurity and defilement — all that is 
unhallowed or profane. 

Secondly, it includes moral wholeness, com- 
pleteness, soundness, purity, sacredness, conse- 
cration. It relates also to both the inward and 
outward states, embracing the moral condition 
of the heart and the character of the life. All 
systems of philosophy and ethics have labored 
to reform and purify the outward character and 
life ; to make the stream sweet, the fruit good ; 



Holiness to the Lord. 1 1 

to cleanse the outside of the cup or platter ; or 
to whiten the sepulcher. But the Christian 
system looks first of all to the utter eradication 
of all the roots of bitterness from the heart, 
to the purification of the fountain, to making 
the tree good, to bursting the cerements of the 
spiritual grave, and giving a resurrection from 
the moral death which has reigned within. 
This system teaches us that there can be no 
outward holiness in the life, in the conduct, and 
in the habit, unless the inward principle be im- 
planted in, and dominating over, all the powers 
of the soul. 

Thirdly, holiness has infinite degrees. From 
its first implantation in the soul by the Divine 
Spirit, in regeneration, when it exists in the 
midst of a mass of impurity and defilement, 
struggling for the mastery, spreading its influ- 
ence until the mass of man's being, all his pow- 
ers, are brought into harmony with it and exist 
in a state of moral wholeness in the sight of 
God, and thence all the way up through the 
ranks of unfallen beings to the infinite, absolute 
holiness of God. There are different degrees 
also of holiness in the saints on earth and the 
saints in heaven. " All gold is not refined to 



T2 Holiness to the Lord. 

the same degree and height of purity ; but true 
gold, though in the lowest degree of fineness, 
will endure the furnace and the touchstone, 
and by that trial is discerned from counterfeit 
metal."* 

A beautiful illustration of the manner in 
which holiness may exist in a soul where im- 
purity and defilement still remain is found in 
the recent discovery by medical men of what is 
called the cure of ulcers by " supplantation." 
The skillful physician will take a small piece of 
pure, healthy flesh from the person afflicted 
with the ulcer, or from another one, and placing 
it right in the midst of the diseased part it will 
soon begin to exert its healing and transform- 
ing influence until new flesh is formed and the 
festering ulcer disappears. So the great Phy- 
sician of souls implants the elements of holiness 
in the diseased human soul — in its moral ul- 
cers — which renew, transform, and restore to 
moral soundness all its parts and powers. 

Fourthly, more than this, there is no degree 
of holiness which the soul can attain, either in 
this world or in eternity, which does not admit 
of a continued and everlasting increase. No 

* Cruden. /;/ loco. 



Holiness to the Lord. 13 

more dangerous or damaging opinion can be 
entertained by any person than that he has 
attained, or can attain, a state of grace beyond 
which there is no further advancement. Such 
an idea would wither and repress all the ener- 
gies of the soul ; would speedily exhaust any 
holy oil that might be in the lamp, leaving 
nothing but the wick and the lamp of a fruit- 
less and profitless profession. It is to meet 
and satisfy the longings and aspirations of the 
human soul that God has set forth before it an 
eternity of progression in holiness and bliss. 
And besides this, there is no evidence more 
sweet or convincing which the Christian can 
have of his actual growth in holiness than that 
of an intense, earnest, quenchless desire for its 
increase in his soul. It is an unvarying law, in 
the divine economy, that the higher the soul 
rises in holiness the more earnest are its 
outreachings after greater heights, and the 
more fixed and determined are its upward 
strugglings. While, on the other hand, if our 
desires for holiness are weak, irregular, and fee- 
ble, that fact evinces either a very low state of 
grace, or else that there is in the heart no ele- 
ment of holiness at all. In closing this chapter 



14 Holiness to the Lord. 

I would say, then, dear Christian friend, test your 
experience by this rule : Am I longing after 
holiness ? Am I refusing to be satisfied with 
any thing short of this ? In comparison with 
this, do I count all things else but loss ? Do I 
see so clearly my remaining corruptions, my 
unlikeness to God, that I loathe myself and 
sink down into utter nothingness and self- 
abasement before him ? Are my convictions 
so clear on this subject that I am constantly 
driven to the opened fountain of redemption 
and to the grace and power of the Holy Spirit ? 
If an affirmative answer is at hand to these 
inquiries, you are rapidly approximating the 
condition which your soul desires. "Blessed 
are they which do hunger and thirst after right- 
eousness, [holiness :] for they shall be filled-' 
The very effort to rise lifts us higher. The 
longing readily finds its supply. The Holy 
Spirit would never have enkindled such a desire 
in the soul without intending to satisfy it with 
all his fullness ; and when that desire is realized 
it should be cherished — it should be guarded 
with the utmost jealousy and cultivated with 
untiring assiduity ; for God has created it in 
the soul. The yearning cry, " Nearer, my 



Holiness to the Lord. 1 5 

God, to thee," results in a twofold answer : God 
comes nearer to the soul, and the soul comes 
nearer to God. Thus there is a mutual ad- 
vance, lessening continually the distance be- 
tween them, until the beatific vision of heaven 
is enjoyed, and the unfettered soul rises rapidly 
in the scale of being and of blessedness forever. 



" Holy as Thou, O Lord, is none ; 
Thy holiness is all thy own ; 
A drop of that unbounded sea 
Is ours — a drop derived from thee. 

And when thy purity we share, 
Thine only glory we declare ; 
And, humbled into nothing, own, 
Holy and pure is God alone." 

C. Wesley. 



Holiness to the Lord. iy 



CHAPTER II. 

THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 

HOLINESS in God is underived, abso- 
lute, and eternal. It is impossible for us 
to conceive of God in any other character than 
this. Could we imagine that there is in him 
any evil, any impurity or injustice we should 
revolt at the very idea of his existence and of 
his character, while our minds would be in a 
fearful state of anxiety and apprehension of his 
dealings toward us. 

But, in multiplied instances, he declares that 
he is holy : " I the Lord your God am holy." 
Lev. xix, 2. "Ye shall therefore be holy, for I 
am holy." Lev. xi, 45. "But as he which hath 
called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner 
of conversation ; because it is written, Be ye 
holy, for I am holy." 1 Pet. i, 15, 16. He is, 
by his own designation, " The Holy One of Is- 
rael," and this is repeated twenty-nine times in 
his Word. It is this inherent, essential holi- 
ness of his nature which he makes the basis of 

2 



1 8 Holiness to the Lord. 

his commands to his creatures to be holy. 
Further, holiness is ascribed to him by all the 
heavenly hosts, by the holy prophets, apostles, 
and saints. The six-winged seraphim, seen in 
Isaiah's vision as they flew through the vast ex- 
panse, cried one to another, in everlasting re- 
sponses, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. 
The whole earth is full of his glory." Isa. vi, 3, 
And the six-winged beasts — living creatures — 
seen by the revelator in apocalyptic vision, 
"rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, 
holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, 
and is to come." Rev. iv, 8. Whether this 
threefold ascription of holiness is given to the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost respect- 
ively, or is designed to express the infinite holi- 
ness of God as it is seen by the higher orders 
of intelligences, does not affect the argument 
here. In either case holiness is the attribute 
which calls forth the profoundest adoration and 
the most constant songs of praise. 

When Israel had reached the Canaanward 
shore of the Red Sea, in their triumphal song they 
say, " Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the 
gods ? who is like thee, glorious in holiness ? " 
Exod. xv, 11. In the rapt and joyous exclama- 



Holiness to the Lord. 19 

tions of Hannah in the house of the Lord, when 
she came with a full heart to offer thanks unto 
the Lord, who had heard her cry, she says, 
"There is none holy as the Lord." 1 Sam. ii, 2. 
The royal psalmist exclaims, " Thou art holy, O 
thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Psa. 
xxii, 3. Again, " Worship at his footstool; for 
he is holy." Psa. xcix, 5. And again, " The Lord 
is , . . holy in all his works." Psa. cxlv, 17. Ezra 
the scribe, with his garment and his mantle rent, 
and his hair and beard plucked because of the 
wickedness of Israel, at the time of the evening 
sacrifice fell upon his knees, and spreading out 
his hands unto the Lord in the confession of 
their sins, cried out " O Lord God of Israel, thou 
art righteous." Ezra ix, 15. St. John heard the 
Angel of the Waters saying, " Thou art right- 
eous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be." 
Rev. xvi, 5. The whole multitude of the heaven- 
ly host, standing upon " the sea of glass, mingled 
with fire," singing "the song of Moses and of 
the Lamb," exclaim, "Who shall not fear thee, 
O Lord, and glorify thy name ? for thou only 
art holy." Rev. xv, 4. 

1. From these and kindred portions of the 
word of the Lord, it appears that the holiness of 



20 Holiness to the Lord. 

God is infinitely removed from every thing that 
is evil or wrong He is declared to be " of 
purer eyes than to behold evil, and he cannot look 
on iniquity." Hab. i, 13. "In him there can be 
no malice, or envy, or hatred, or revenge, or pride, 
or cruelty, or tyranny, or injustice, or falsehood, 
or unfaithfulness ; and if there be any thing be- 
sides which implies sin, and vice, and moral im- 
perfection, holiness signifies that the Divine na- 
ture is at an infinite distance from it." * "As His 
will is the standard and criterion of holiness, so 
his nature is essentially characterized by holi- 
ness. It is holiness. As well could he cease to 
be as cease to be holy. Other holy beings there 
are, but their holiness is derived and dependent. 
Pure and glorious as are the angels of light, yet 
so transcendently glorious is their Creator that 
it is said, ' He putteth no trust in his servants, 
and chargeth his angels with instability.' No 
confidence is to be placed even in the stability 
of their holiness, except as sustained by himself. 
Although in spotless sanctity they present their 
adorations before his throne, yet is their nature, 
in common with all created nature, mutable. Of 
this who can entertain a doubt that reflects on 

* Archbishop Tillotson. 



Holiness to the Lord. 21 

the awful apostasy of myriads of their family, 
now consigned to the blackness of darkness 
forever? Nor does the security of those who 
retain their holiness and their bliss result from 
any immutability in themselves, but from the 
purpose and the power of Him where they are 
and whom they serve ; in whose presence they 
are represented as vailing with their wings their 
faces, as if dazzled with the splendor of his 
holiness; and vailing with their wings their 
feet, as if conscious of their unworthiness to 
approach the throne of his glory." * It is in view 
of this spotless holiness of his nature that St. 
James says, " Let no man say when he is tempt- 
ed, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be 
tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any 
man." Chap, i, 13. And the beloved disciple 
says, " God is light, and in him is no darkness 
at all." 1 John i, 5. And "every man that hath 
this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He 
is pure." 1 John iii, 3. 

2. There are two great branches of this attri- 
bute of holiness in God, namely, justice and truth. 
These are beautifully blended in the utterance 
of Moses. " He is the Rock, his work is per- 

* Rev. F. Bonder. 



22 Holiness to the Lord. 

feet; for all his ways are judgment: a God of 
truth and without iniquity, just and right is 
he." Deut. xxxii, 4. Not to speak here of the 
various forms in which God's justice is exhibited 
to the universe, I would speak of it in that gen- 
eral sense in which the word corresponds with 
righteousness, or benevolence, or virtue. " The 
holiness and justice of God are, in reality, one 
and the same thing ; the distinction consists in 
this only, that holiness denotes the internal in- 
clination of the divine will — the disposition of 
God — and justice the expression of the same by 
action."* "The object of the holiness of God 
is general, universal good ; of his justice and be- 
nevolence, the welfare of his creatures"^ He al- 
ways does right, and is always opposed to that 
which is wrong. He cannot be warped, biased, 
or turned aside in his decisions or dealings. 
" Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? " 
Gen. xviii, 25. He is strictly impartial in all 
his ways. "There is no respect of persons 
with God." He deals with all his creatures, 
from the highest to the humblest, on the strict 
principles of unvarying righteousness. "The 
Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of 

* Knapp's Theology, in loco. \ Ibid. 



Holiness to the Lord. 23 

lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, 
which regardeth not persons, nor taketh re- 
ward." Deut. x, 17. He " accepteth not the 
persons of princes, nor regardeth the rich more 
than the poor : for they all are the work of his 
hands." Job xxxiv, 19. 

We know that in this state of probation a com- 
plete and perfect manifestation of the justice of 
God cannot be made. There are many things 
which seem to us, from our narrow stand-point, 
unequal and unjust. The wicked are often 
prospered in this world, pampered with luxuries, 
permitted to come down to old age, and to en- 
joy all the blessings of this life; while, on the 
other hand, the virtuous and the good are often 
poor, afflicted, and despised. Often the inno- 
cent are punished, while the guilty go free. 
Not infrequently has a Jeffries been on the 
bench of justice — so called — while a Baxter has 
been a prisoner at the bar. These things, 
at times, have startled and staggered the best 
of men in every period of the world's his- 
tory. But the word of God pre-announces 
a day of judgment, in which all the appar- 
ent inconsistencies and inequalities of the 
Divine administration will be clearly seen to 



24 Holiness to the Lord. 

have been so regarded by us because of the 
limitedness of our vision, when virtue will re- 
ceive its full, appropriate, and everlasting re- 
ward, and vice w r ill suffer its deserved and ever- 
lasting punishment. Then the justice of God 
will be vindicated. His dealings w T ith his crea- 
tures will then exhibit that they were prompted 
by his infinite goodness, guided by his infinite 
wisdom, and controlled by his sovereign power. 
And, no doubt, while the countless cycles of 
eternity are revolving in endless rounds, as the 
dispensations and dealings with his intelligent 
creatures are being developed with ever-increas- 
ing clearness, the songs of the redeemed and 
the glorified will ring out with greater clearness 
and sweetness. " Great and marvelous are thy 
works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are 
thy ways, thou King of saints." Rev. xv, 3. 

Another element of the holiness of God is 
truth — including faithfulness in the fulfillment 
of his covenants and promises. In that won- 
derful revelation of the Divine glory w T hich was 
granted to Moses while he was hid in the cleft 
of the rock, and the Lord passed by before him, 
it was proclaimed, "The Lord, The Lord God, 
merciful and gracious, Ion ^suffering, and abun- 



Holiness to the Lord. 25 

dant in goodness and truth." Exod. xxxiv, 6. 
" He is a God of truth and without iniquity, just 
and right is he." Deut. xxxii, 4. The very " paths 
of the Lord are mercy and truth." Psa. xxv, 10. 
" Thou art plenteous in mercy and in truth." 
Psa.lxxxvi, 15. " His truth endureth to all gen- 
erations." Psa. c, 5. "The Lord is a God who 
keepeth truth forever." Psa. cxlvi, 6. All His 
"works are truth." Dan. iv, 37. "God is not a 
man, that he should lie ; neither the son of man, 
that he should repent : hath he said, and shall 
he not do it ? or hath he spoken, and shall he not 
make it good." Num. xxiii, 19. "It is impossi- 
ble that God should lie." Heb. vi, 18. "Know 
therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the 
faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy 
with them that love him and keep his command- 
ments." Deut. vii, 9. These scriptures might 
be multiplied, but they are sufficient to indicate 
to us the character of that wonderful Being 
whom we are called upon to love, to trust, and 
to adore. The independence and immutability of 
his nature clearly show us that his truth must 
endure forever. His veracity cannot be ques- 
tioned ; his promises cannot fail ; his word will 
stand fast forever. Never have his people found 



26 Holiness to the Lord. 

his covenant or his promise to fail. And what 
he has been in the past, he will be in the future 
and forever. His word is truth — essential, 
eternal truth. The everlasting mountains may 
depart, the perpetual granite hills be removed ; 
but his kindness shall not depart from his peo- 
ple, neither shall the covenant of his peace be 
removed. Isa. liv, 10. O what a foundation is 
here for the confidence and trust of the people 
of God ! It is firm as the unyielding Rock of 
Ages, and enduring as eternity. And, after 
God has taken so much pains to assure us of 
his truth and faithfulness, how great is the sin 
of unbelief ! 

But while this great truth is so comforting 
and assuring to the people of God, how terrible 
it is to wicked and ungodly men ! All his 
threatenings, as well as all his promises, are true, 
immutably true. Xot one word of them shall 
ever fail. And he has declared that nothing- 
shall ever enter the Holy City where he dwells 
which "defileth, or maketh a lie." Rev. xxi, 27. 
And, further, that "all liars shall have their part 
in the lake which burnetii with fire and brim- 
stone." Rev. xxi, 8. From these threatenings 
there can be no escape. Xo "rocks" can hide 



Holiness to the Lord. 27 

the finally impenitent, no "mountains" fall on 
them so that they can be hid from "the pres- 
ence of God and from the wrath of the Lamb, 
when the great day of his wrath is come." The 
very arguments which some men employ to pro- 
duce unbelief in the Divine threatenings would, 
in like manner, produce unbelief and distrust of 
his promises. If one word of the Lord can 
fall to the ground, so can another, and the result 
would be blank atheism and endless chaos and 
confusion. 

The most beautiful illustration of this attri- 
bute of the Divine character is found in the 
person and character of his only begotten Son. 
He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate 
from sinners." Heb. vii, 26. Even the man 
with the unclean spirit was compelled to cry 
out, " I know thee who thou art, the Holy One 
of God." Mark i, 24. St. Peter calls him, " The 
Holy One and the Just." Acts hi, 14. St. John 
calls him, "Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 
ii, 1. And although he took upon himself "the 
form of a servant," and "was made in the like- 
ness of sinful flesh," yet " sin " was " excepted " — 
he was the only sinless human being who ever 
trod this earth since Adam fell. 



28 Holiness to the Lord. 

But He was perfect. Even his worst enemies 
were constrained to say, "We find no fault in 
him." The Roman Governor who gave consent 
to his death, went through the mock ceremony 
of washing his hands, declaring, " I am innocent 
of the blood of this just person." Matt, xxvii, 24. 
All contemporaneous history, and all that follow- 
ed up to the time of Origen, shows that nothing 
had ever appeared against him. "Neither the 
Mishna nor the Talmud, which contain the 
whole substance of Jewish testimony on this 
subject ; neither Celsus, Porphyry, nor Julian, 
who have given us the whole heathen testimony, 
have ever fixed upon Christ the minutest charge 
of either sin or folly." * In all the vast proces- 
sion of the ages, testimony to his purity, his 
spotlessness, his gentleness and love, has been 
accumulating, until the vast pile stands out lu- 
minous with glory and commanding the atten- 
tion and regard of the nations. Such has been 
the impression which he has made upon the 
heart of humanity, that millions have been will- 
ing even to die for him. And in all the ages of 
the past there have never been so many hearts 
inspired with his love, or so many tongues em- 

*Dwight*s Theology, vol. ii, p. 158. 



Holiness to the Lord. 29 

ployed in his praise. Hundreds have attempt- 
ed a delineation of his wonderful character and 
life — some friends, and some foes. But while 
no artist has ever yet risen to his own concep- 
tion of his form and features, his mingled majes- 
ty and grace, so no tongue or pen has ever been 
able to tell or trace " His matchless worth." All 
this could not have been had there been the 
spot or stain of sin upon him, or even the breath 
of suspicion against the purity of his character. 
Thus he has stood forth before the world — " the 
brightness" — the outbeaming splendor of his 
Father's glory, and "the express image of his 
person," illustrating to mankind the infinite ho- 
liness of God, as well as his faithfulness and 
truth. " He was full of grace and truth!' So 
full that neither the romance of Renan nor the 
rationalism of Strauss have been able to dim the 
luster of his character, or to blur his spotless 
purity 

In all these methods God has made known his 
holiness to men — by his own declaration ; by the 
ascriptions rendered to him by all the angelic 
hosts of heaven, and saints, and prophets, and 
apostles, and martyrs ; by his justice, and truth, 
and faithfulness ; and, last of all, yet brightest 



30 Holiness to the Lord. 

of all, by his only begotten Son, whose charac- 
ter and life have illustrated the great principles 
and perfections of the Divine nature. God, then, 
is the only being in the universe who is absolute- 
ly holy. Holiness, whenever and wherever it 
exists in the creature, must be derived from him, 
and its continued existence must depend upon 
him ; and to whatever degree of holiness any 
angelic or human being may attain, it will still, 
in its fullest development, be infinitely below 
the holiness of God. 

And yet this very fact, instead of discouraging 
our efforts, or dampening our energies, has the 
effect of inspiring us with more earnest longings 
to be ever growing in likeness to Him. We 
can never be as holy as God is, and yet we can 
be like him. And while throughout eternal 
ages we may be getting near to him, and becom- 
ing more like him, every advancement will only 
show us more clearly the infinite distance there 
is between us and him, and call forth intense 
longings to be more like him. This presents 
before us an endless career of advancement in 
holiness and blessedness. 

"We shall be like Him ; for we shall see him 
as he is." This open and undimmed vision of the 



Holiness to the Lord. 31 

holiness of God will forever transform and 
transfigure us more fully after his glorious image. 
Here is a career worthy of an immortal being, 
and all-sufficient to call forth his most ardent 
longings and aspirations. 



" Angels are possessed of consummate holiness. The evi- 
dence of this truth is so multiform, and so abundant, in the 
Scriptures, that no particular proof or illustration seems to be 
necessary. Their joy and praise at the creation, their divine 
transport at the birth of the Redeemer, and the union of glory 
to God in the highest, and good-will toward men, disclosed by 
that wonderful event, and their noble and disinterested exulta- 
tion in the repentance of ruined sinners, are all sublime mani- 
festations of the unalloyed holiness, of the pre-eminent beatify 
of mind, possessed by this dignified order of beings. The name 
Seraphim, or Burning Ones, is also a most forcible representa- 
tion of this exalted character. In this name, the mind of an 
angel is exhibited as enkindled with one intense and eternal 
flame of divine love, burning with a clear, unceasing, perpetu- 
al ardency and splendor. In accordance with this character, 
the four Living Ones, who are exhibited as representatives of 
the angelic host in the heavens, manifest their exalted love to 
the great Author of their blessings, by celebrating, with an un- 
ceasing voice, his infinite holiness and excellency throughout 
the never-ending progress of their being. 



Holiness to the Lord. 33 



CHAPTER III. 

HOLINESS IN UNFALLEN BEINGS. 

f~\ F all the intelligences in the universe — at 
^-^ least of all that we know anything about 
— the different ranks and orders of angels in 
the heavenly world are the only unfallen ones. 
That they are holy beings cannot be doubted ; 
the Son of God himself declares this : " When 
the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all 
the holy angels with him." Matt, xxv, 31. 
They are also so called in Acts x, 22, and 
in Rev. xiv, 10. They have probably passed 
through a period of probation, and their charac- 
ter is confirmed, and their state is unchange- 
ably and everlastingly fixed. Very many of 
their number, who, like themselves, were under- 
going a probationary course, for some cause not 
fully known to us, " kept not their first estate," 
and, having fallen under the wrath of their Sov- 
ereign Creator, are " reserved in chains, under 
darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." 
Jude vi. They are fallen and have become 



34 Holiness to the Lord. 

fiends. It would seem that they, with their 
great leader, Satan, although predoomed and 
predestinated to the abysmal depths of hell, are 
yet permitted to range through the atmospheric 
heavens, and to roam over the world — to come 
into dire and fierce conflict with the good, the 
true, the pure, and the holy, and to seek whom 
they may devour and destroy. For their final 
and endless place of punishment, the great pris- 
on-house of the universe, hell, has been prepared, 
and there, when man's probation on earth is 
ended, and their doom has been formally an- 
nounced at the last judgment, they will be con- 
fined forever. 

But the good angels have maintained their 
fealty to the throne of God, and are ever 
employed to do the bidding of their Lord, in 
whose presence they find their fullness of joy, 
and whose eternal abode is ever kept ringing 
with their anthems and their songs of joy. 
They are, also, " all ministering spirits, sent 
forth to minister for them who shall be heirs 
of salvation." Whenever we think of them 
two ideas are always present in our minds — 
their purity and their power. We never couple 
with thoughts of them any ideas of impurity 






Holiness to the Lord. 35 

deceit, profanity, corruption, or sin. As they 
are holy in their character, so they are holy in 
their conduct. They do the will of God cheer- 
fully, constantly, perfectly, without any defect 
or any variance. They " serve him day and 
night in his temple." They sang with the 
morning stars, they were present in countless 
numbers on Mount Sinai, and were the media- 
tors through whom the law was given ; they 
pre-announced the birth of the Son of God, and 
filled heaven and earth with their songs of 
joy when he became incarnate ; and when he 
ascended up on high they accompanied him 
with all their pomp, and splendor, and glory, 
and "shouted him welcome to the skies." In 
these and other instances in which they are 
presented before us in the Word of God they 
appear to us the purest, holiest, and loveliest 
beings in the universe, whose purity is spotless 
and whose bliss is unalloyed. 

They are also the Living Ones. No age ever 
wrinkles their brow, no sorrow ever dims their 
eye, no shadow ever falls upon the brightness 
and glory of their countenance, and neither 
decay nor death can touch their radiant forms. 
Mingling continually, by day and by night, with 



36 Holiness to the Lord. 

the children of men — present with them in 
garret and in cellar, in cot and hut, as well 
as (and mayhap more frequently than) in man- 
sion and palace — they never are affected by the 
moral miasmas and contagions which often 
surround them ; their white robes are never 
sullied by the filth, the pollutions, or the lep- 
rosies of sin. No dream of the poet, the 
painter, or sculptor ever yet fully realized, in 
verse, on canvas, or in marble — pure, and beau- 
tiful, and lovely as are the creations of their 
genius, especially when that genius is illum- 
ined and inspired by our holy Christianity — 
the purity and beauty of these " sons of God." 
We shall never fully know their endowments 
in these respects until our half - obscured 
vision shall see their white wings fluttering 
over our dying bed, or, more and better still, 
when, with undimmed, beatific sight, we shall 
behold their shining ranks bending in lowliest 
adoration before Him who sitteth upon the 
throne, and we shall listen forever to their 
songs of joy. They are spotlessly, faultlessly 
holy. 

At his creation our first parent, Adam, was 
pure and holy. He came forth from the hands 



Holiness to the Lord. 37 

of his great Creator bearing his image and like- 
ness, which consisted in " righteousness and 
true holiness," and thus was pronounced to be 
" very good!' How long he remained in this 
condition we know not. He, also, had his pro- 
bation, to pass through. Assaulted by the 
tempter he yielded and fell, and thus became 
sinful and depraved. He lost the image of God, 
which was once his glory and his crown ; and 
now, wherever man, descended from him, exists, 
it is as a fallen creature with sinful tendencies, 
which often — too often, alas ! — develop them- 
selves in fearful acts of transgression and rebel- 
lion. We have not here to deal with the prob- 
lem of moral evil, but only with the fact. 
Moral evil is here ; it has been here during all 
the past ages, and will probably continue in one 
form or another until the judgment of the great 
day. But, whatever man is now, he was once 
pure and holy. " The Lord made man upright." 
The Lord could not have made him otherwise. 
An infinitely holy Being cannot create sin or a 
sinful being. Adam was a perfect man in the 
midst of a perfect world — unless, perhaps, we 
should except the fallen angels — and so he 
might have remained until translated to a 



$S Holiness to the Lord, 

higher sphere at the termination of his proba- 
tion. He was not only free from all sinful 
tendencies and actions, from all impurity and 
corruption, but also from all frailties and weak- 
nesses of body and mind. All his conceptions, 
imaginations, and ratiocinations — his tastes, pas- 
sions, and pursuits — were innocent and holy. 
His bodily powers were unaffected by disease 
or pain, and unthreatened with death. There 
was no clog whatever to the free action of his 
mental or moral powers. Thus constituted, he 
was enabled to keep perfectly the law of God 
without the slightest infraction or variation. 
He labored under no disability whatsoever. 
His perceptive powers were quick, clear, and 
unbiased, as witness his giving correct names, 
descriptive of their qualities and habits, to all 
the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air 
as they were brought before him. " Adam, 
before his fall, was undoubtedly as pure, as 
free from sin, as even the holy angels. In 
like manner his understanding was as clear as 
theirs and his affections as regular. In virtue 
of this, as he always judged right, so he was 
always able to speak and act right."* So pure, 

* Wesley's Sermons, vol. ii, p. 16S. 



Holiness to the Lord. 39 

and perfect, and holy was he when he came 
from the hand of God. But, alas ! " how is the 
gold changed, and the fine gold become dim ! " 

" All we like sheep have gone astray ; we 
have turned every one to his own way ; and the 
Lord hath laid on Him [Jesus] the iniquity of 
us all." We are fallen ; but we are also, blessed 
be God ! redeemed. 



" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." — Jesus. 

" Love is the fulfilling of the law." — Paul. 

" Neither can any man while he is in a corruptible body 
attain to Adamic perfection. Adam, before his fall, was un- 
doubtedly as pure, as free from sin, as even the holy angels. 
But since man rebelled against God the case is widely differ- 
ent with him. He is no longer able to avoid falling into in- 
numerable mistakes. Consequently he cannot always avoid 
wrong affections, neither can he always think, speak, and act 
right. Therefore man in his present state can no more attain 
Adamic than angelic perfection." — Wesley. 



Holiness to the Lord. 41 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOLINESS IN REDEEMED FALLEN BEINGS. 

UP to this point we have regarded this 
great question in its relation to God and 
his unfallen creatures. But we now come to 
the consideration of a question more vital and 
of greater interest and importance to us. We 
are fallen and depraved beings. No argument 
is needed to prove this. It is not only clearly 
stated in the Word of God, but it is confirmed 
by our consciousness, our observation, and all 
the facts of human history. All the powers of 
our being have been perverted by sin. We 
are "carnal, sold under sin." Rom. vii, 14. It 
is very probable that no human heart fully 
knows, or could even bear to know, the strength 
and power of its depraved tendencies. No 
man, as long as he is under redemptive influ- 
ences, is ever permitted fully to exhibit his total 
depravity. That the heart is totally depraved 
we admit. But all its tendencies are during 
probation held in check and restrained by the 



42 Holiness to the Lord. 

gracious agencies referred to. Were it not so 
man would be nothing but a fiend — an incar- 
nate demon — and the world would speedily be- 
come one vast pandemonium. Even with all 
these influences and agencies, how fearful are 
the exhibitions of depravity which every day 
and every-where meet our eye ! And were they 
withdrawn, who can conceive what the result 
would be ? There is indeed no such thing as 
" natural goodness." All those traits of charac- 
ter in unregenerate persons which we regard 
as pleasant, or amiable, or lovely,- are but the 
legitimate fruitage of redemption and the sov- 
ereign agencies which it has so amply provided, 
and which are so efficiently employed. They 
are the results of grace, preventing, restraining, 
aiding, and encouraging. 

The whole glory of all these things belongs 
to Christ ; and these traits of which we have 
spoken often exist in individuals in connection 
with the most dangerous and damning elements 
of character. There may be amiability of dis- 
position, and a heart as cold and dead toward 
God as a flinty rock. There may be temper- 
ance of habits, and the constant utterance of 
blasphemies. There may be suavity of man- 



Holiness to the Lord. 43 

ners, with all the slavish passions of libertinism. 
There may be honesty in dealing with our fel- 
low-men, while our hearts, by pride, or unbelief, 
or indifference, or rebellion, may be robbing 
God of the honor and glory and service due to 
him. There may be benevolence toward suf- 
fering humanity, and the basest ingratitude 
toward God. But all these natural virtues, as 
they are called, although they are more prop- 
erly gracious, are frequently exalted and exag- 
gerated by the world, while the antagonizing ele- 
ments in the character and the life are utterly 
ignored or carefully glozed over. 

But we cannot get rid of the fact, if we 
would, that we are depraved, fallen beings. If 
this fact existed alone, unrelieved and unpro- 
vided for, we might well despair. But right 
alongside of the fact of the fall stands that of 
redemption. Right on the brow of the dark- 
ling night, shrouded in gloom, quaking with 
thunder, and scowling with wrath, is set the 
Star of Bethlehem, and the eternal stars of 
God's promises and covenants shed their light 
upon our otherwise dreary pathway. The old 
dragon, the serpent, has done his work in the 
ruin of our race : Christ the Redeemer, the 



44 Holiness to the Lord. 

Restorer, has come to "bruise the serpent's 
head " and proclaim his ability to save. It is 
only because of redemption that holiness is a 
possibility for fallen beings. It is indeed ex- 
ceedingly doubtful whether a race of fallen, 
unredeemed beings would have been allowed to 
exist on the earth ; but supposing it possible 
for them to have existed, holiness would no 
more have been desired by them than it is by 
fiends. There is a world of unransomed fallen 
beings, and there is no evidence whatever that 
they ever have the slightest desire for holiness. 
On the contrary, it is evident that they exhibit 
the most intense and determined hatred to God 
and goodness, and are carrying on, by day and 
by night, the fiercest opposition to them. Holi- 
ness, then, is only possible through redemption. 

Persons in all ages, seeing in the light of 
the Spirit, who " convinces the world of sin, 
and righteousness, and judgment to come," the 
sinful tendencies of their natures and the cor- 
ruptions of human society, have endeavored 
to curb and restrain their passions, to reform 
themselves and society at large, and to wash 
out the stains of their sins. But finding the 
current too strong for them to hold in check. 



Holin&s to the Lord. 45 

and the stains of guilt too deep, and dark, and 
damning for them to wash out, they have, by 
perverting the influences of the Spirit in their 
hearts and yielding to the dictates of unre- 
strained and corrupt imaginations, invented 
systems of religion and multiplied gods and 
goddesses ; have built costly temples, sustained 
retinues of priests, supported gorgeous and 
imposing rituals, and offered up unnumbered 
sacrifices, in the vain hope of thus obtaining 
power over sin and peace of conscience. The 
world has been well-nigh saturated with the 
blood of victims thus vainly slain, while the 
smoke of the sacrifices has darkened the 
heavens, and mountains and valleys have 
been made redolent with the fumes of offered 
incense. Philosophers and sages have devised 
beautiful systems of philosophy and ethics to 
cure the evil of sin, but they have all signally 
failed, and long since have been thrown aside 
as useless. Modern philosophers, theorists, and 
scientists are now trying their hand at this 
same work. The announced panacea for the 
cure of all the evils of man's heart, and the con- 
sequent evils of society, is culture, science. If 
men and women could only know the various 



46 Holiness to the Lord. 

strata of the rocks, the different epochs of the 
geological record ; if they could be taught about 
light, and air, and protoplasm, and natural selec- 
tions, and electricity, etc., then all the corruptions 
of their nature would be cleansed and all their 
moral maladies be healed. They would banish 
the Bible as effete, and set up in its place the 
taper-light of reason for the guidance of men. 
They would exclude God from the universe 
which he has created, and give in his place 
the " universum " of Strauss, or the great " dead 
head " of Spencer and Mill. They would anni- 
hilate the mighty cross of Jesus — " all stained 
with hallowed blood " — and substitute for it the 
refinements of " philosophy, falsely so called." 
But if men give up God, and the Bible, and 
Christ, where are we to go ? whom are we to 
follow ? We cannot follow Spencer and Mill, 
nor Huxley and Darwin, nor Strauss and Tyn- 
dall ; for " neither so does their witness agree 
together." Mark xiv, 59. 

Leaving, then, these vain systems, only giving 
them credit for whatever of real scientific value 
they may contain, we come back to the eternal 
principles of the word of God. Here we learn 
that not only is holinessr equired in fallen be- 



Holiness to the Lord. 47 

ings, but, also, that holiness may be possessed 
by redeemed and fallen men. It becomes, there- 
fore, a question of the deepest interest for us to 
know, What is that holiness which may exist in 
fallen but redeemed men ? In view of the im- 
portance of this inquiry, we prefer, first of all, 
to consider it in its negative form, or what it 
is not. 

1. It is not what we ordinarily understand by 
virtue or morality. On this Mr. Wesley speaks 
with his usual terseness and f orcefulness . " How 
many take holiness and harmlessness to mean 
one and the same thing ! Whereas, were a man 
as harmless as a post, he might be as far from 
holiness as heaven from earth. Suppose a man, 
therefore, to be exactly honest, to pay every one 
his own, to cheat no man, to wrong no man, to 
hurt no man, to be just in all his dealings ; sup- 
pose a woman to be uniformly modest and virtu- 
ous in all her words and actions ; suppose the one 
and the other to be steady practicers of morality, 
that is, of justice, mercy, and truth ; yet all this, 
though it is good as far as it goes, is but a part 
of Christian holiness ; yea, suppose a person of 
this amiable character to do much good wher- 
ever he is, to feed the hungry, to clothe the 



48 Holiness to the Lord. 

naked, relieve the stranger, the sick, the prison- 
er ; yea, and to save many souls from death, 
it is possible he may still far fall short of that 
holiness, without which he cannot see the 
Lord."* 

Again, a recent writer well says : " Under the 
influence of the domestic affections, such as 
subsists between husbands and wives, parents 
and children, brothers and sisters, we may be- 
come good members of the family. In like 
manner, under the influence of patriotism, or 
love for one's country, we may be valuable mem- 
bers of the State. So also, yielding to the 
promptings of that sympathy which unites us 
to all who share our humanity, we may render 
sendee to those to whom we are bound neither 
by family nor by social ties. The natural affec- 
tions which God has implanted within us have 
an important use, and most strikingly reveal 
the wisdom of our Maker. But the action to 
which they tend cannot rise to the dignity of 
right and holy action until love reign in the 
heart." f 

More specifically and more emphatically still 
does Bishop Huntington say : " Holiness is not 

* Sermons, vol. ii. p. 459. \ Rev. John Moore. 



Holiness to the Lord. 49 

to be confounded with virtue. Nor is any dis- 
paragement cast upon virtue by affirming this dis- 
tinction. They are names of two things, not 
one and the same. They do not express the 
same quality in character. They rest on differ- 
ent capacities in human nature — virtue on the 
conscience, holiness on faith. They are fed 
from different fountains — virtue from moral 
principle, holiness from communion with God 
in Christ. They may be guided by different 
directors ; virtue depending more on self-will, 
as is intimated in the classical origin of the word, 
where it expressed the special characteristic of 
the Roman mind, which was a certain honora- 
ble, proud high-mindedness, but Pagan and not 
Christian, and where it was nearly synonymous 
with valor, or such fidelity as depends on per- 
sonal courage. Holiness, on the other hand, 
implies a subjection of self-will, und the pres- 
ence of those spiritual attributes, like humanity, 
forgiveness, and religious submission, which are 
peculiar to Christianity. Holiness requires 
virtue as one of its ingredients ; no man 
can be holy without being virtuous. But 
virtue, on the contrary, is often found, tem- 
porarily and in individuals, dissociated from 



50 Holiness to the Lord. 

holiness. Holiness is the essential root — vir- 
tue is the essential fruit"* 

2 // is not the perfection of our mental powers. 
No mental deficiency or defect is supplied by 
the possession of holiness. It will be readily 
admitted that it will clarify the intellect, and 
that the man who is thoroughly under its power 
will be guided into the truth, and kept from fall- 
ing into errors and mistakes into which other- 
wise he would run ; but still it is not its design 
to perfect, in this world, uncultivated or imbe- 
cile powers, or to free even the most cultivated 
and enlightened from the possibility of errors 
and mistakes. "The wayfaring man, though a 
fool," may be holy, and yet he may both do and say 
many things which are awkward, uncouth, out 
of taste, and impolite. Holiness will not make 
a weak memory strong, nor an unsound judg- 
ment infallible, nor feeble reasoning powers 
acute or accurate, nor an ignorant man wise. 
It will, and it does, help all these powers, and it 
will enable & man to make the very best use of 
the powers which he possesses, whether weak 
or strong ; but it will not make an angel of him 
in this world, nor raise him to the condition of 

* Sermons for the People, pp. 89, 90. 



Holiness to the Lord. 51 

unfallen Adam. So long as a man lives in this 
world he will be liable to errors in judgment, 
and this will lead to errors in practice. He will 
have certain peculiarities, or idiosyncracies, 
which he will carry with him to his grave. 
Both our mind and body suffer in this world 
from the involuntary effects of sin. From these 
we shall be ultimately and completely redeemed, 
but not until " mortality is swallowed up of life." 
We shall bear with us the last mental and phys- 
ical defects, nervous disorders, cerebral affec- 
tions, diseased lungs — either inherited or super- 
induced by exposure, or even imprudence, or by 
former habits of sin — febrile tendencies, and a 
thousand bodily disorders. The existence of 
these defects renders even a holy man liable to 
irregularities and mistakes in his conduct, and 
no one is more conscious than himself of the ex- 
istence of these things, for which he is often 
grieved and humbled. Indeed, it cannot be 
otherwise. The stand-point which he occupies 
is so narrow and limited that his conceptions 
must necessarily be also limited, and he can see 
and know only a little of the persons and things 
which come under his notice. If he knew bet- 
ter he would often judge and act more wisely, 



52 Holiness to the Lord, 

and accurately, and justly. But he only knows 
in part. And, if it were required of us to pos- 
sess and exhibit a holiness free from all these 
defects, and failures, and frailties, we should be 
obliged to acknowledge at once that such a 
thing, in this present state, is impossible. It is 
right here where many dear ministers and Chris- 
tians in our sister Churches, regarding a con- 
dition of holiness as implying and embracing 
such a freedom, are led to think, and feel, and 
say, that no such condition can be realized 
or enjoyed, however desirable it may be. 
They set the standard so high that none but 
an unfallen being could ever measure up to it. 
But as we shall see, a fallen being, in the 
midst of all these difficulties and disabilities, 
may be holy — may answer, in Jesus, the di- 
vine requirement, and enjoy this high and 
blood-bought privilege. 

3. Nor is it freedom from temptation, nor from 
a possibility of sin, nor from even a liability to 
apostasy. An idea has been entertained by 
some persons that no one can be tempted un- 
less there is within him something which will 
respond to the temptation. This is not, cer- 
tainly, in accordance with the teachings of the 



Holiness to the Lord. 53 

Word of God. Adam was a pure and holy 
being, with neither taint of, nor tendency to, sin 
in him, and yet he was tempted and fell. The 
Lord Jesus Christ was " holy, harmless, unde- 
filed, and separate from sinners," and yet " he 
was tempted in all points like as we are, yet 
without sin." Temptation, in its ordinary sig- 
nification, is an impulse — a solicitation to com- 
mit some evil act. Now, the holiest beings 
may be tempted to do the worst things which 
the mind can conceive. The holy Jesus was 
tempted to bow down and worship the devil. 
No act could possibly have been more idola- 
trous or abominable than this. But we do not 
conceive that the temptation either defiled or 
injured the Son of God, or found any thing in 
him to respond to it. It left no stain upon the 
immaculate purity of his soul. So those who 
are the most saintly in their character may be 
solicited to evil in all its various forms. It 
does no one any harm to be tempted. It is 
only a part of our discipline on earth to try 
our virtue and our grace. Nor can we prevent 
being tempted, so long as we are in this world 
and dwelling in tabernacles of clay. So long 
as Satan exists, and an alluring, wicked world is 



54 Holiness to the Lord. 

around us, and we are possessed of human pas- 
sions, we shall be tempted. At the same time 
we are to avoid every thing which would act as 
a temptation upon us, and we are to pray ear- 
nestly that we may not be led into temptation. 
But still, after all our prayers and watchful- 
ness, we shall be conscious of the presence 
and power of the tempter, and of the need of 
our utmost endeavors to conquer and over- 
come him. 

And yet the purified soul is placed on a 
high vantage-ground in its power of resistance 
and in its strength to overcome. Where the 
remains of sin still exist in the soul there 
is plenty of tinder for the devil's fire ; and 
although the justified believer may and does 
overcome, yet the fight is a fiercer one because 
of the enemies within. But the wholly sancti- 
fied soul has no enemies within — they are all 
without ; and although they may rage and roar, 
and endeavor by stratagem or by force to take 
the citadel of the holy soul yet, while it is trust- 
ing in Jesus, they can never succeed. 

It is well also to remember that there is 
a difference between temptations and trials, in 
their origin, their source, and their design. 



Holiness to the Lord. 55 

While holy souls are tempted by Satan, they 
are also tried by the Lord. Hence, it is said 
that " God did tempt [or try] Abraham." Gen. 
xxii, i. These u fiery trials" are ordered or 
permitted by our heavenly Father, to refine, 
purify, and strengthen his people, not to injure 
or destroy them. They are all made to " work 
together for good to them that love God." 
Hence, his people are often poor, afflicted, perse- 
cuted, bereaved, sorrowful, and disconsolate. 
"We know that one plunged in abject poverty 
may have hidden heart-grief. A godly trades- 
man may struggle with bad times, be intensely 
concerned to maintain his credit and position, 
suffer deep depression, while supreme love to 
God reigns in his heart and inspires submis- 
sion to the Divine will. Who does not feel 
the cares, trivial annoyances, little worries that 
troop around him day by day ? They are to be 
met with where we work and recreate, in the 
agents and agencies of the Church, and even in 
the bright precincts of home ; they spring from 
the incidents of trade, its fluctuations, compe- 
tition, losses, success, etc. ; they run alongside 
of religious exercises, creating distraction in 
prayer, in reading the Bible, and in worship in 



5 6 Holiness to the Lord. 

the house of God * These are only some of 
the trials and annoyances in life to which all 
are liable, from which none escape. 

And as holy beings may be tempted and tried 
during their probation, so they may fall into 
sin, and even into apostasy. The angels fell 
from heaven ; Adam fell in paradise and lost it. 
So holy beings may fall while in a state of pro- 
bation. It would be no probation if they could 
not fall. Doubtless, the probabilities of their 
falling are greatly less than of those who are 
weak and feeble in grace — babes in Christ. 
They are " strong in the Lord, and in the power 
of his might." They are veterans in his serv- 
ice. Further, Mr. Wesley conceived that it is 
possible for the soul to have that full assurance 
of faith and hope that it never will fall ; but 
even such a state, which he conceives it possi- 
ble may be reached, will not exempt the one 
enjoying it from the necessity of constant 
watchfulness and constant struggle. 

4. Holiness is not maturity. There may be 
moral wholeness where there is much that is im- 
mature and imperfect. A child may be healthy 
and perfect as a child, but it is not therefore a 

* Tracts on Scriptural Holiness, pp. 36-38. 



Holiness to the Lord. 57 

man. Maturity is the result of growth, disci- 
pline, development. The soul may be cleansed 
from all sin and wholly sanctified to God, and 
yet may be very far from that adulthood in 
grace and holiness which it may attain even in 
this world. Much confusion has arisen in some 
minds from confounding these things together. 
At the same time, while making this distinc- 
tion, it should never be forgotten that purity is 
the highest condition of growth — of healthy and 
symmetrical growth — in this world. Nor does 
it only furnish the most favorable conditions 
for a uniform and constant growth, but also for 
a rapid growth of all the graces of the Spirit, 
as there is nothing remaining in the soul to 
hinder or obstruct them. 

But we now advance to the consideration 
of what holiness is. 1. It is a separation from 
every thing vile and sinful, unclean, and impure ; 
in a word, it is separation from sin. Sin and 
holiness are, and must be, not only diametrically 
opposite, but in eternal antagonism to each 
other — they cannot peacefully coexist. Even 
in the regenerated soul where the remains of 
sin exist and struggle for the mastery against 
the new, divine life, that new, divine life is 



58 Holiness to the Lord. 

struggling against them. "The flesh lusteth 
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the 
flesh : and these are contrary the one to the 
other : so that ye cannot," while this state of 
things exists. " do the things that ye would." 
Gal. v, 17. But the soul that is made holy 
unto the Lord is freed, not only from the guilt, 
and power, and dominion of sin, but also from 
its very presence. Pride, anger, love of the 
world, covetousness, envy, jealousy, selfishness, 
lust, and every form of sin, depart, and leave 
nothing but purity and holiness. This is a pri- 
mal and fundamental element of holiness. As 
long as sin remains in the soul, it is, strictly 
speaking, unholy. In a general sense, and as 
compared with its former conditions, and in its 
relations to God and his Church, it is holy ; but 
in its own sight, and in the sight of a holy God, 
much that is unholy and impure dwells within 
it. Holiness, then, is separation. " Where- 
fore," the Lord says to his people, " come out 
from among them, and be ye separate" But it 
is also separation from the world — from its 
spirit, maxims, pursuits, pleasures, vain amuse- 
ments, and ambitions. The holy saint, it is 
true, is not to go out of the world, or to shut 



Holiness to the Lord. 59 

himself up in the tombs, or in a monastic cell. 
The world has had enough of that kind of holi- 
ness. Nor is it in any sense that proud, Phari- 
saical, pompous piety which sweeps along in its 
broad phylacteries and says, " Stand by thyself : 
for I am holier than thou." The world has had 
enough of this, too. And yet, in a higher and 
vastly better sense, the saint may and must be 
separate from the world. Jesus said to his dis- 
ciples, " Ye are not of the world ; but I have 
chosen you out of the world." And in his inter- 
cessory prayer he says, " I pray not that thou 
shouldest take them out of the world, but that 
thou shouldest keep them from the evil." John 
xvii, 15. The world, the wicked and godless 
world, is an enemy to holiness. Therefore, 
in dress, in amusements, in recreation, in our 
associations, so far as we can control them, 
we are to be separate from the spirit and 
power of the world. We shall be assailed by 
it, if we would live godly in Christ Jesus, in 
a thousand forms ; we shall meet it at every 
turn ; but we are to be unmoved and unpol- 
luted by it. 

This does not at all imply that we are to be 
dull, morose, somber, or gloomy in our relations 



60 Holiness to the Lord. 

and dealings with the world. No ! The holy 
Jesus was at the marriage of Cana and mingled 
pleasantly in its festivities. Nor do we conceive 
that his presence cast a shadow of gloom upon 
the joyousness of the occasion. He mingled 
with all classes and conditions of men, even 
with the humblest and the vilest. And yet, in 
reality, he was " separate from sinners." It 
must be remembered that he mingled with those 
classes of persons, not to partake of their spirit, 
not to mix with their ungodly actions or to 
sympathize with their sinful ways, but to ben- 
efit and bless them ; to seek and save them ; to 
sympathize with the sinner while hating and 
denouncing his sins ; and to lead them upward, 
by his words and example, to his Father's house 
of many mansions. Thus his people are to 
imitate his example and to follow in his foot- 
steps. O, it is possible to go through this 
world robed in the white robes of righteous- 
ness, and to keep them unspotted and undefiled. 
So says the word of God. " Pure religion and 
undefiled before God and the Father is this, To 
visit the fatherless and widows in their afflic- 
tion, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
world!' James i, 27. And it was said by him 



Holiness to the Lord, 61 

"that hath the seven spirits of God, and the 
seven stars/' [Rev. iii, I,] of some in the an- 
cient Church of Sardis, that they "had not de- 
filed their garments!' Rev. iii, 4. This is the 
kind of holiness which the world needs. Men 
and women living in the world, but not of the 
world — mingling with its busy scenes, and yet 
at the same time walking with God. 

2. Holiness is love. Under the evangelical 
economy, "love is the fulfilling of the law." It 
is a beautiful and most interesting fact, that the 
two great conditions which God has laid upon 
his creatures are not only those which are of 
the easiest and simplest character, but which 
we are, in a lower sense, constantly realizing 
and manifesting — love and faith. Hence the 
great command of the Law is, " Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart ; " and of 
the Gospel, " Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou 
shalt be saved." The apostle says, "All the 
law is fulfilled in one word : Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." Gal. v, 14. " God is love ; 
and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, 
and God in him." 1 John iv, 16. Hence, holy 
beings have the same kind of love which God 
has — not, of course, the same degree. This no 



62 Holiness to the Lord. 

created intelligence can ever have. Love is 
the very fountain of all obedience, as obedience 
is the test and evidence of love. It is also the 
source of all true self-denial, self-sacrifice, hu- 
mility, meekness, and gentleness. That is a 
holy soul, then, in which nothing exists contrary 
to love to God and man. Love, then, is per- 
fect. The soul has attained a condition of moral 
wholeness. Love is the all-controlling, all-ab- 
sorbing, dominating principle. And although 
there may be much that is weak, and imperfect, 
and immature, yet " Holiness to the Lord " is 
graven upon it by the Eternal Spirit. This 
love will prompt to all holy endeavor in the 
cause of God, and for the good and the salva- 
tion of humanity. For love is not a quiescent, 
but an active, principle. If it exists in the soul, 
and exists in perfection — that is, with nothing 
contrary to it — it will exhibit itself in love to all 
Christians of every grade of experience ; in love 
to a ruined world, which will lead to every effort 
for its redemption ; in love for the cause and 
kingdom of God, which will lead to the sacrifice 
of ease, self, money, family, friends, every thing, 
for its advancement. It will long to have the 
Gospel preached to every creature, because God 



Holiness to the Lord. 63 

made him, and Christ redeemed him, and it is 
possible for him to be saved. 

3. Holiness is the sum of all the graces exist- 
ing in the purified soul in simplicity. Love, 
joy, peace, long-suffering, meekness, humility, 
are free from the presence of every thing 
which is contrary to, or would antagonize 
them. Faith exists without doubt, or fear, 
or unbelief. Love is unlimited by selfishness, 
or hate, or malice, or anything which is con- 
trary thereto. Humility clothes the soul, and 
is unmarred by pride. Meekness, like the lily 
of the valley, exhales its fragrance, unsmoth- 
ered by anger or ill-will, envy or jealousy. 
Peace holds her gentle sway over the soul, un- 
disturbed by stormy passions, unagitated by 
inward or outward alarms, and ungnawed by 
the corroding tooth of care. Thus, there is 
nothing in the soul contrary to these and kin- 
dred graces, and " they exist in measure corre- 
sponding to the present capacity of the soul 
possessing them. Mere finiteness of a faculty, 
or affection, or grace, may be said to be an 
imperfection as compared with the infinite, but 
cannot be said to be a sinful imperfection. A 
moral differs from a natural defect in this, that 



64 Holiness to the Lord. 

the one is voluntary, the other is constitutional ; 
the one is sinful, the other is blameless. If a 
finite soul be, to its utmost capacity, filled with 
love, it is perfectly holy, though its capacity be 
capable of infinite expansion.* 

We can only love God with the powers which 
we are in possession of. God requires nothing 
more : he could demand nothing less. The 
terms in which his great first command is 
couched are exceedingly striking and impress- 
ive. It does not merely express the employ- 
ment of the entire powers of " the heart, soul, 
and mind," but also those powers are required 
to exercise this love which each individual pos- 
sesses. It does not say, Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with the powers of an angel, or 
with the unimpaired powers of unfallen Adam ; 
but " w T ith all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind." That heart, soul, and 
mind may be very feeble, weak, and impaired ; 
they may not have been expanded by exercise 
or improved by culture, and at best they are 
exceedingly limited ; but, so long as the powers 
which we have are fully employed in loving our 
Father and Saviour, we have fulfilled the divine 

* Bishop Foster, " Christian Purity," p. 76. 



Holiness to the Lord. 65 

requirement ; we are accepted in the Beloved ; 
we are saved, fully saved. The more fully we 
become acquainted with this command, the 
higher will our wonder rise at the consummate 
wisdom of the words in which it is expressed. 
Another may have faculties, both natural and 
acquired, which almost infinitely transcend those 
which I possess, and, beholding him with his 
giant intellect and his great heart, I may wish 
to love God as he can, and as he does ; but if I, 
with my feeble intellect and less-capacious 
heart, love God with all that intellect and heart, 
I am as truly accepted of him as is my more 
talented brother. The holy soul, whatever its 
powers may be, would yet love God with still 
greater powers if it could ; often it wishes 
for an angel's powers, a seraph's burning love 
for him. 

But all the command is, " With all thy heart, 
and soul, and mind, and strength." A Ruther- 
ford, a Fletcher, a Payson, a Cookman, an 
Angel, could do no more. 



" Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it ; that 
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
the word, that he might present it to himself a glo?'ious 
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but 
that it should be holy and without blemish." — Paul. 

11 For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be 
sanctified through the truth." — Christ. 

" By the which will we are sanctified through the offering 
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." — Paul. 



Holiness to the Lord. 67 



CHAPTER V. 

HOLINESS THE ORDAINED PURPOSE OF CHRIST'S 
SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. 

r I ^HAT Jesus Christ came into the world 
-*- and suffered and died, is just as well 
established as any other historical fact. But 
the inquiry arises, "Why did he come into 
the world and suffer and die?" What object 
had he in view ? What purpose animated, and 
inspired, and sustained him ? What was the 
plan of his wonderful life and of his more won- 
derful death ? The laboring brain of the skep- 
tical world has been tasked for ages in endeav- 
oring to frame a satisfactory and consistent 
answer to these questions. Without pausing to 
consider the various and contradictory answers 
which have been returned, we take the position, 
fearlessly, that the only consistent answer which 
is or can be given to these questions is that which 
is contained in the word of God. Here we 
learn that the redemption of our fallen human- 
ity was not, so to speak, an after-thought in the 



68 Holiness to the Lord. 

Divine mind, occasioned or suggested by the 
fall — an expedient to meet an emergency which 
had unexpectedly arisen in the affairs of the 
world. No ! He who is from eternity — who 
seeth the end from the beginning — foresaw, 
that although "He had invested man with all 
the possibilities of an everlasting integrity, that, 
tampered with by a superior foreign force, man 
would fail of his integrity ; and he provided for 
exigencies that must follow."* His infinite wis- 
dom and boundless love provided the redemp- 
tion which his infinite holiness, and justice, and 
truth demanded. And that redemptorial plan 
was so arranged and so ordered as to be com- 
plete and perfect, providing for the restoration 
of our fallen and dying humanity upon condi- 
tions at once the most simple and the most 
practicable. And hence, when man had actu- 
ally fallen — when, guilty and self-condemned, 
the serpent, the woman, and the man stood be- 
fore the Lord to hear their doom, or ever a 
word of sentence was spoken to the guilty pair, 
and while the condemnatory words were being 
pronounced upon the serpent — there was held 
out, even amid the words of this sentence, the 

* Dr. Bannister, " Methodist Quarterly Review," April, 1873. 



Holiness to the Lord. 69 

primal promise of redemption. " I will put 
enmity between thee and the woman, and be- 
tween thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise 
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen. 
hi, 15. This was the first announcement of 
mercy to our fallen world. This was the bow 
of promise which spanned the darkling heavens 
as they overhung man's dreary pathway. But, 
while it was the first, it was followed by other 
prophecies and promises brighter and clearer 
still, until the whole plan appears in the Gospel 

Full-orbed, 
In all its round of glorious rays complete. 

All we have now to do is to stand, and gaze, and 
wonder at, and adore, the ordained and revealed 
purpose of God in redemption. In his letter to 
the Ephesians the apostle Paul says : " Blessed 
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual 
blessings in heavenly places in Christ : accord- 
ing as he hath chosen us in him before the 
foundation of the world, that we should be holy 
and without blame before him in love." Eph. 
i, 3, 4. To the Thessalonians he also writes : 
" But we are bound to give thanks always to 
God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, 



7° Holiness to the Loj'd. 

because God hath from the beginning chosen 
you to salvation through sanctification of the 
Spirit and belief of the truth." 2 Thess. ii, 13. 
So the Apostle Peter, writing "to the strangers 
scattered abroad," says, " Elect according to the 
foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanc- 
tification of the Spirit, unto obedience and 
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." 1 Pet. 
i, 2. In the letter to the Hebrews there occurs 
the following remarkable passage, illustrating 
and applying the language of the forty-ninth 
Psalm, prefaced by the clear and explicit state- 
ment to the Jews that " it is not possible that 
the blood of bulls and of goats should take 
away sins :" — " Wherefore, when he cometh into 
the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou 
wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared 
me : in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin 
thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I 
come (in the volume of the book it is written of 
me) to do thy will, O God. . . .By the which will 
we are sanctified through the offering of the 
body of Jesus Christ once for all." Heb. x, 
5-7, 10. This is the language of the eternal Son 
to his Father — interpreted by the great apostle 
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No 



Holiness to the Lord. 71 

one in the universe could so clearly and fully 
know the will of the Father as he. And it is 
by the accomplishment of his will in assuming 
a prepared body, and offering himself up once 
for all in that body, that we are provisionally, 
and may be actually, saved and sanctified. In 
harmony with the will and purpose of the Fa- 
ther, he prays, in his inimitable intercessory 
prayer, " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy 
word is truth. And for their sakes I sanc- 
tify myself, that they also might be sanctified 
through the truth." John xvii, 17, 19. It was 
also in full accord with that purpose that the 
apostle says, "Christ also loved the Church, 
and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify 
and cleanse it with the washing of water by the 
word, that he might present it to himself a glo- 
rious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or 
any such thing ; but that it should be holy and 
without blemish.'' Eph. v, 25-27. 

But perhaps some one will say, " This is all 
clear and plain so far as the ultimate purpose 
of Christ's sufferings and death is concerned, 
and it will be fully realized in the eternal world ; 
but this state can never be realized here." 
And, in a sense, this is true, so far as it regards 



7 2 Holiness to the Lord. 

the ultimate and complete realization. But that 
it cannot be attained or enjoyed here is con- 
trary to the teachings of the word of God. 
Hence, the apostle prays for the Thessalonians, 
first, that they might be " sanctified wholly ; " 
and, secondly, that they might " be preserved 
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ." And when Zacharias was under the 
full inspiration of the Holy Spirit he prayed: 
" Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he 
hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath 
raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house 
of his servant David ; as he spake by the mouth 
of his holy prophets, which have been since the 
world began : that we should be saved from our 
enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us ; 
to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, 
and to remember his holy covenant ; the oath 
which he sware to our father Abraham, that he 
would grant unto us, that we, being delivered 
out of the hand of our enemies, might serve 
him without fear, in holiness and righteousness 
before him, all the days of ottr life!' Luke i, 68- 
75. Here are mentioned, not only the promise 
and the prophecies of God's word, but also the 
oath of God, and all culminating in the grand 



Holiness to the Lord. 73 

announcement, " that we might serve him with- 
out fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the 
days of our life!' 

Here, then, we have, in the clearest manner, 
the revelation of God's purpose toward his 
Church and people. We need not have, we 
scarcely can have, any doubt as to its meaning. 
From the unfathomed depths of the eternity 
that is past, this great design was in the heart 
of God : the complete restoration, through the 
sacrificial offering of his only begotten Son, and 
the almighty agency of the eternal Spirit, of 
every one who believes on him, not only to his 
favor, but also to his image. How dear that 
purpose, then, is to him ! And it is not, we 
think, saying too much, that the universe was 
planned and created in view of this purpose. 
" Man was the grand archetypal thought of God 
in the creation ; and all processes, and growths, 
and developments, and preparations upon this 
earth, prior to the coming of man upon it, were 
but growths and preparations for man as the 
highest, grandest result of God's work in the 
creation. And the very fact that all things 
were created by and for the Son of God, and 
the relation of the Son to the creation is evi- 



74 Holiness to the Lord. 

dence — nay, proof — that the worlds were made 
for mediatorial purposes." * And, further than 
this, the whole hierarchy of heaven, who know 
infinitely more of God's universe than the 
greatest scientists of earth, regard this purpose 
as of more interest and of more consequence 
than all the vast and limitless empire of Mate- 
rialism. And although their lofty songs are 
employed in celebrating the works of the Lord, 
and in adoration of the wisdom, and power, and 
goodness which they display, yet it is the 
great designs of redemption which most fre- 
quently set their harps a-ringing. 

This purpose is indeed wonderful. To trans- 
form a poor, fallen, guilty, polluted, condemned 
creature into a justified, renewed, sanctified soul, 
fitted for the service of the Lord on earth and 
then to dwell forever in an abode of infinite 
purity and blessedness, is enough to excite the 
adoring wonder of the universe to all eternity. 
Many of the purposes of God we know not. 
He has not seen fit to reveal them unto us. 
They lie hidden in the profound depths of 
the Eternal Mind. But this one is so clearly 

* Dr. Bannister, in "Quarterly Review," April, 1873. See 
also, Hugh Miller in " Testimony of the Rocks."— P. 234, et seq. 



Holiness to the Lord. 75 

revealed to us and our children that no doubt 
can be entertained with reference to it. Our 
only difficulty is, perhaps, in endeavoring to 
realize that such a wonderful purpose embraces 
us, and that it can be realized in our expe- 
rience. But He who originated the plan of 
redemption and ordained its accomplishment 
knew what was in man ; knew the dark and fear- 
ful character of his sins ; knew the depth and 
degradation of his depravity ; knew the tempta- 
tions of the world, and sin, and Satan, by which 
he would be assailed ; knew all his weaknesses, 
disabilities, frailties, and passions ; knew all his 
tendencies and proclivities ; and yet he pur- 
posed that he should be redeemed, and, upon 
the simple condition of his believing in Jesus, 
should be restored, purified, hallowed, and 
glorified for evermore. 

And what He has purposed can he not, will 
he not perform ? Who or what can hinder 
him ? Who can harm when he delights to save ? 
If the simple condition of faith is complied 
with, who can hinder the blood from cleansing 
the soul from all sin? Who can prevent the 
descent of the holy, hallowing Spirit ? If all 
hell were combined, and all wicked men allied 



J 6 Holiness to the Lord. 

with them, and all the strength and power of 
their enmity and depravity aroused to its ut- 
most tension, yet if the soul trusts implicitly 
in the blood of Christ, in the promise and the 
oath of God, he will do this work. Sooner 
would the sun grow dim, and the moon lose 
her luster, and the stars fall from heaven, and 
ruin drive her plowshare through the universe, 
than God would suffer his promise to fail. O, 
if his purpose or his promise could fail, even in 
a single instance, the pillars of his throne 
would be uprooted, universal chaos would reign, 
and he would cease to be God. Such a thing 
is unthinkable. It can never be. And if so, 
then we may be saved — fully, gloriously saved 
on earth, and endlessly saved in heaven. 
Glory be to the Father ! Glory be to the 
Son ! Glory be to the Holy Ghost ! Amen. 

If this purpose has not been, and cannot be, 
accomplished, then the whole design has failed. 
For Christ is either a perfect Saviour, able to 
save to the uttermost, or he is no Saviour at 
all. His blood can either cleanse from all sin 
or it cannot cleanse from any sin. There is no 
middle ground here. An imperfect Saviour, or 
an imperfect salvation, is a solecism. But the 



Holiness to the Lord. yy 

white-robed, countless throngs before the throne 
demonstrate the completeness of the provisions 
of infinite love. And there are multitudes 
now on earth, and their number is constantly 
increasing, who can joyfully testify to the effi- 
cacy of the atoning blood in fully saving them. 
Thus the ordained purpose of the holy Trinity 
has been realized, and will continue to be until 
time is no more. 

" Thou dying Lamb ! Thy precious blood 

Shall never lose its power. 
Till all the ransomed Church of God 

Are saved to sin no more." 

Cowper. 



" The promise stands, forever sure, 
And we shall in thine image shine, 
Partakers of a nature pure, 
Holy, angelical, divine ; 
In spirit joined to thee, the Son, 
As thou art with thy Father one." 

C. Wesley. 

1 This is the will of God, even your sanctification." — Paul. 

" O God, what orT'ring shall I give 

To thee, the Lord of earth and skies ? 
My spirit, soul, and flesh receive, 

A holy, living sacrifice : 
Small as it is, 'tis all my store ; 
More shouldst thou have, if I had more." 

C. Wesley. 



Holiness to the Lord. 79 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOLINESS DEMANDED AND PROMISED. 

WE have been looking at the announced 
purpose of the Lord in redemption, 
until, as we trust, all our doubts and fears have 
given way, and we have sunk down in adoring 
wonder, love, and praise. But at every step 
we take in the consideration of this question, 
higher wonders rise and new anthems burst 
forth from our raptured souls. It is but natu- 
ral for us to suppose that a holy God would 
require holiness in his intelligent creatures. 
More than this, as we have already seen, his 
own holiness is the basis on which he rests the 
requirement of holiness in his creatures. " Be 
ye holy : for / am holy." " Be ye therefore per- 
fect, even as your Father which is in heaven 
is perfect." This command, in one form or 
another, is constantly presented before us in 
his Word. It is thundered from Sinai's blazing 
mount ; it is uttered in tenderest tones from 



80 Holiness to the Lord. 

Calvary. No one can doubt that God com- 
mands his creatures to be holy. There is no 
need of any argument here. This is an axio- 
matic truth in God's revelation. The only ques- 
tions which have arisen in the mind of man 
are : " Is it possible to be holy ? Can man 
obey this divine command ? Is not the com- 
mand to be understood with certain limitations 
and restrictions ? Does it not have reference 
to a future world and a future state ? Multi- 
tudes have answered these last inquiries affirma- 
tively, and have settled down on the conviction 
that it was utterly useless to attempt obedience 
to this command. And they have done so, not 
because they are infidels, or skeptics, or insin- 
cere Christians. No ; many an honest and sin- 
cere Christian has felt and talked thus. Many, 
too, who would love to be holy — who are strug- 
gling against the corruptions of their nature 
and sighing for deliverance from them — who 
are, in this sense, "all their life-time under 
bondage," — have yet deliberately concluded that, 
for them at least, holiness is an impossible at- 
tainment. But why so ? 

The question, indeed, is narrowed down to a 
very few points, upon which there need be 



Holiness to the Lord. 81 

neither ambiguity nor obscurity. Has God 
required his creatures to be holy ? Does this 
requirement pertain to the present time and 
the present life ? The first question is readily 
admitted by all to be affirmatively answered. 
There is no escaping from such an answer. No 
language could make God's command plainer. 
But if he has required one of his moral creat- 
ures to be holy, he has required all to be 
holy. This is his universal law. He has not 
one law for one class of his creatures, and an- 
other for others. Wherever there is a moral 
agent in the universe, this command is obli- 
gatory upon him. It is the law of the heaven 
of heavens — of angel and archangel, cherubim 
and seraphim. It is the law of all worlds, 
" even as far as the universe spreads its flam- 
ing wall " — even to the outer periphery of our 
firmament. It is the law of all our world, fal- 
len, and sin-cursed, and ruined as it is. It is as 
much the duty of the vilest and impurest sin- 
ner to be holy as it is of the devoutest saint. 

Now, the settlement of this point greatly 
simplifies the whole question of obligation. 
Every man, every person, should feel and say, 
" God requires me to be holy." This is the 



82 Holiness to the Lord. 

point which needs to be pressed upon the 
heart and conscience of every believer, and 
indeed, of every man. It is very natural for 
us to endeavor to excuse ourselves from this 
obligation and say, " I am so peculiarly consti- 
tuted, or my condition and surroundings in life 
are so different from others, or I am so impuls- 
ive or impetuous, or my business relations are 
so complicated, or my family affairs and rela- 
tions are so situated, or my temper is so irrita- 
ble and irascible, or my passions are so strong." 
All these and a thousand other difficulties men 
may and do allege to excuse themselves from 
obedience to this command. But God has 
never excused any one from this obligation. 
He has never altered, or relaxed, or lowered 
his command to suit the various circumstances 
and conditions of humanity. All down the 
ages, all through the universe, rising above the 
noise, and bustie, and confusion of men, sound- 
ing out amid the music of the spheres, may be 
heard this divine command: "Be ye holy, for I 
the Lord your God am holy!' The only thing 
that we can do consistently is to rise up, in the 
strength of God, to do what he requires of us, 
to be what he commands us. We should make 



Holiness to the Lord. 83 

use of all the means he has put in our hands, 
and avail ourselves of all the provisions which 
he has made. If there are, as there always 
will be while we are in this world, failures, 
weaknesses, follies in us, he has made provision 
for them. But willful, persistent neglect, or dis- 
obedience, must excite his displeasure and en- 
kindle his wrath. If God commands, there is 
but one thing for us to do, and that is, to obey. 
Our efforts to do this may not be as regular, 
constant, and faultless as we could desire ; but 
still we must put forth our utmost endeavors, 
under the aid of his Holy Spirit, to obey ; and 
then, conscious of our lapsed and fallen condi- 
tion, of our multiplied weaknesses and failures, 
we must ever have recourse to the blood of 
atonement, through which only our souls can 
be accepted in the sight of God. It is in view 
of this that the most holy saints on earth have 
need to pray, " Forgive us our trespasses/' and 
to acknowledge, 

" Every moment, Lord, I need 
The merit of thy death." 

But God is not a being of stern, inflexible 
justice merely, sitting upon his everlasting 
throne and commanding his creatures to do 



84 Holiness to the Lord. 

what he knows they cannot do without extend- 
ing a helping hand to them, or uttering an 
encouraging word, or making provision for 
their existing wants and necessities. Very far 
from this is his character, and very different 
are his dealings with the children of men. The 
most loving, cheering, and inspiring words ever 
poured on a human ear he utters to his children. 
The vocabulary of earth and all its babbling 
tongues is found insufficient to express the ut- 
terances of his love, the sweetness of his prom- 
ises, or " the riches of his grace." Hence it is 
said, simply, " God so loved the world ; " and, 
" Beloved, if God so loved us ; " thus indicating 
a profundity and an eternity of love which no 
human ken can ever fathom, and no archangel's 
plummet can ever sound. When the Apostle 
Peter attempts a survey of the promises w T hich 
God has made that we might be partakers of 
his divine, his holy nature, he is evidently at a 
loss, even under the inspiration of the Spirit, 
for words to express his sense of their great- 
ness and their value. Hence he says : " Where- 
bv are given unto us exceeding great and 
precious promises ; that by these ye might 
be partakers of the divine nature, having 



Holiness to the Lord. 85 

escaped the corruption that is in the world 
through lust." 2 Pet. i, 4. Thus we are made 
to see that there are not only "promises" to 
make us partakers of the divine nature, but 
" great promises /" and they are not only great, 
but they are " exceeding great " promises ; and 
not only so, they are "exceeding great and 
precious promises." And it only needs that we 
should dwell upon some of them for a season, 
to understand that this estimate is neither too 
great nor too high. And we shall further see 
that " exceeding broad" as is His command, 
the breadth of his promise is commensurate 
with it. Does He command us to love him 
" with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and 
strength?" He promises, "I will circumcise 
thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love 
the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and 
with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." Deut. 
xxx, 6. Does He command us to be pure ? 
He says, " Come now, and let us reason to- 
gether ; though your sins be as scarlet, they 
shall be as white as snow ; though they be red 
like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isa. i,i8. 
" Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you ; 
and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, 



86 Holiness to the Lord. 

and from all your idols, will I cleanse you." 
Ezek. xxxvi, 25. Again: "If we walk in the 
light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship 
one with another, and the blood of yesns Christ 
his Son cleans eth us from all sin. If we con- 
fess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unright- 
eousness." 1 John i, 7, 9. Does He command 
us to be sanctified ? By the apostle he has de- 
clared : " This is the will of God, even your 
sanctification." 1 Thess. iv, 3. ' For God hath 
not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holi- 
ness." 1 Thess. iv, 7. Thus every command 
has its answering promise. What he requires 
us to be, to do, or to attain, he clearly and fully 
promises to help us, or to bestow upon us the 
gift or the grace. If this great work had to be 
undertaken in our own strength, or were made 
to depend upon our own resources, we might 
well doubt, and even despair. But nothing of 
this kind is required. The whole ground is 
covered by provision and promise. All the 
resources of redemption, and I may say, rever- 
ently, all the resources of God, are placed at our 
disposal. His almightiness, his goodness, his 
justice and truth, are pledged to the perform- 



Holiness to the Lord. 87 

ance of this work for every one who believes. 
All the merit of the sacrificial sufferings and 
death of the Son of God, and all the power of 
his blood, are ever ready, waiting, and, I may 
say, almost pressing against human hearts, to 
cleanse and purify them. And all the power of 
the eternal Spirit is available, by day and by 
night, for this same purpose. How, then, can 
we doubt any longer ? How can we hesitate 
for another moment ? The universe is ringing 
with the invitation, " Come : for all things are 
now ready ! " 

Hence, if this class of persons — honest 
doubters of the possibility of the attainment of 
Christian holiness in this life, though equally 
earnest desirers of its possession, if attainable — 
would but look less at their own imperfections, 
and more at the abundant provision made for 
their entire deliverance from the indwelling 
and power of sinful affections, and the strong 
assurances given in God's word of the ability 
of the Spirit to thus aid their infirmities, they 
would soon attain, at least in many instances, 
to this high state of grace. Then they would 
be able to add their testimony, that " the blood 
of Christ cleanseth from all sin." 



" No outward forms can make us clean ; 
The leprosy lies deep within. 

Nor bleeding bird, nor bleeding beast, 
Nor hyssop branch, nor sprinkling priest, 
Nor running brook, nor flood, nor sea, 
Can wash the dismal stain away. 

Jesus, thy blood, thy blood alone, 
Hath power sufficient to atone : 
Thy blood can make us white as snow ; 
No Jewish types could cleanse us so." 

Watts. 



Holiness to the Lord. 89 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOLINESS THE PURPOSE OF ALL RELIGIONS, AND 
THE CENTRAL TRUTH OF ALL REVELATION. 

r I ^HE idea of man's sinfulness, and of his 
-*- consequent need of expiation and purity, 
is recognized in all the religions of the world. 
The oldest forms of heathenism abound with 
the ideas of sacrifice. Costly temples have 
been erected ; vast retinues of priests main- 
tained ; altars constantly kept blazing with the 
fires, and crimsoned with the gore, of number- 
less sacrifices. Beasts, birds, and crawling rep- 
tiles, and, not infrequently, men, women, and 
children, were offered up in sacrifice. The uni- 
versal wail of humanity seems to find utterance 
in the language of the prophet Micah : " Where- 
with shall I come before the Lord, and bow 
myself before the high God ? shall I come be- 
fore him with burnt offerings, with calves of a 
year old ? Will the Lord be pleased w 7 ith thou- 
sands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of 



9<j Holiness to the Lord. 

oil ? shall I give my firstborn for my trans- 
gression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my 
soul?" Micah vi, 6, 7. To these questions nei- 
ther reason nor nature has given any adequate 
reply, and tradition has uttered only confused 
sounds. 

The mythologies of ancient Egypt, Greece 
and Rome, Assyria and Babylonia, China and 
Japan, India and Africa, looked toward the ele- 
vation and purification of men from their sinful 
condition. All the sacred books and systems 
of Zoroaster and of Confucius, the Vedas and 
the Shasters, the Koran and the sensuous 
worship of Romanism, have, professedly at least, 
been designed for this purpose. All their teach- 
ings, their sacrifices, their priesthoods, their 
temples, their worship ; all their ablutions, pen- 
ances, and pilgrimages — are designed to secure 
the same result. Max Muller, in his lectures on 
the " Science of Religion," says that " the inten- 
tion of religion, wherever we meet it, is always 
holy. However imperfect, however childish, a 
religion may be, it always places the human 
soul in the presence of God ; and however 
imperfect or childish the conception of God 
may be, it always represents the highest ideal 



Holiness to the Lord. 91 

of perfection which the human soul, for the 
time being, can reach and grasp. It lifts the 
soul above the level of ordinary goodness, and 
produces at least a yearning after a higher and 
better life — a life in the sight of God." 

True, their ideas are confused, their meth- 
ods are various, their stand-points differ, and 
all their systems are ineffectual ; but yet they 
all show the strugglings of the mind and heart 
of men for that which, in a greater or less de- 
gree, they are convinced that they need. And 
there can be no doubt that many a heathen, 
following all the light which he has had, has 
been accepted through the merits of a Christ of 
whom he has never heard, but whom, had he 
heard of him, he would gladly have embraced. 
But what complete and acknowledged failures 
have those systems of philosophy, ethics, and 
religion been ! How powerless to impress or 
move the masses for good ! Occasionally, it is 
true, men and women have risen above them, 
and have practiced sublime virtues, and exhib- 
ited lives of much purity and devotion ; but, 
aside from these individual and rare instances, 
these systems have proved their inherent weak- 
nesses and their utter ineffectualness. 



02 Holiness to the Lord. 

And yet the idea of sacrcdncss which has 
been attached to all religions, all sacrifices, 
priests, nuns, monks, pilgrims, hermits, pillared 
saints, etc., is ineradicable from the human 
mind. It is interwoven in the very fiber of the 
heart of humanity ; it is an integral part of our 
moral constitution. All the sins and supersti- 
tions, the infidelity and skepticism, of the ages 
have not served to dispossess the world of this 
idea. The countless throngs of pilgrims who 
annually wend their way to the sacred Ganges 
to plunge beneath its waters, do so because 
they believe that by so doing they will wash 
away their sins. The Mohammedan goes 
through his daily ablutions, abstinences, and 
prayers, and his frequent pilgrimages, with the 
idea that through these things he will be made 
holy. And so with other religionists, whose 
name is Legion. But they have all failed, and 
must forever fail. 

On the other hand, the system of Christian- 
ity not only announces its great purpose to 
make men holy, but proposes an infallible 
scheme by which this grand result may be real- 
ized. It stands pledged before the world to 
make men holy on certain expressed conditions. 



Holiness to the Lord. 93 

This is its great central idea. If this fails, the 
whole system will fail with it. It stands or 
falls with this great truth. Its Genesis opens 
with Paradise possessed and lost, and its Rev- 
elation closes with Paradise regained and eter- 
nally enjoyed. Every thing in the interim was 
made to bend to this great design, and all the 
events of time and the great facts of history 
are subsidiary to its accomplishment. Proph- 
ecy and promise, the Law and the Gospel, types 
and antitypes, shadows and substances, sym- 
bols and realities, all revolve around this cen- 
tral truth. It is interesting to trace, in the 
ceremonial law, how that the tabernacle and the 
priests, the altar and mercy-seat, the vestments 
of the priests and the offerings of the altar, and 
every thing pertaining to the service of the 
Lord, must be "pure," " consecrated," "sancti- 
fied," " hallowed," and "without spot or blem- 
ish." These words and their cognates are in 
constant use in the divine directions. But we 
all know that all these things were only typ- 
ical — shadows of good things to come. 

God is uprearing, in the midst of this world 
of sin, and suffering, and sorrow, a "spiritual," 
a "holy temple," and every thing about this 



94 Holiness to the Lord. 

is to be holy. " The temple of God is holy, 
which temple ye are." I Cor. iii, 17. " There- 
fore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, 
but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the 
household of God ; and are built upon the 
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ; in 
whom all the building fitly framed together 
groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord : in 
whom ye also are builded together for a habita- 
tion of God through the Spirit." Eph. ii, 19-22. 
" Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spi- 
ritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up 
spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus 
Christ." 1 Pet. ii, 5. Here we have before us 
the plan of the great Architect of this living 
temple. That grand ideal is ever before his 
mind. And is it to be wondered at that, when 
he gave his revelation to mankind, this should 
ever be found in all of his utterances ? Can we 
wonder that it is the burden of his Law, as well 
as of his Gospel ? that it is uttered in tones of 
authority in his law, breathed out in sweetness 
and tenderness in his promises, symboled in 
sacrifices, written in blood, and graven in pre- 
cious stones ? that it burdens the prayers of 



Holiness to the Lord. 95 

inspired men, finds utterance in their exhorta- 
tions and appeals, and, more than all, that it 
was the great purpose of Christ in his sacri- 
ficial offering for sin ? Why was his name 
called Jesus? Was it not because he would 
" save his people from their sins?" Why is he 
called the Lamb of God ? Is it not because 
" he taketh away the sins of the world ? " Thus 
we see that every-where in God's moral uni- 
verse this great truth flashes upon our souls, 
and its responsive utterances waken the pro- 
longed echoes of eternity ? 

The truth of God — his Word — thus becomes 
the great instrument in making his people holy. 
Its commands convince us of its necessity ; its 
wonderful provisions demonstrate the possibil- 
ity of its attainment ; and its luminous prom- 
ises, so free, so abundant, so " exceedingly 
great and precious," show us the certainty of it. 
What more could we desire on this subject ? 
On the one side of us rises, at times dark and 
frowning with thunder, and anon ablaze with 
lightnings, Sinai's rugged and splintered mount ; 
on the other is Calvary, stained with blood and 
vocal with groans. But the burden of both is, 
" Holiness unto the Lord." Around us is the 



96 Holiness to the Lord. 

living temple, flashing in the brightness of the 
Sun of Righteousness ; above us is Mount 
Sion, thronged with the multitudinous hosts of 
"the spirits of just men made perfect," and 
ringing forever with the shouts of six-winged 
seraphim, " Holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts." 
Xo more certain is it, then, that the Sun is the 
great center of our system — not so" certain is it 
that Alcyone is the center of all worlds and all 
systems — than that Holiness is the center of all 
God's system of mercy and grace toward our 
world. 

And what this wonderful system proposes to 
accomplish it actually does for sin-defiled men. 
It makes them holy. It lifts them up out of 
the depths of their guilt and their depravity ; 
transforms their souls ; infuses into them a 
new, divine life ; regulates their whole exter- 
nal conduct ; and hallows their whole being. 
Where every form of Paganism has failed, 
where Mohammedanism has exhibited its utter 
powerlessness, and where all the various theo- 
ories of the philosophers of ancient and modern 
times have been pronounced utterly worthless, 
this divine system of mercy and grace has, and 
that not merelv in rare or isolated instances, 



Holiness to the Lord. 97 

but in multitudes of cases made men and women 
holy, and has thus exhibited its power and pro- 
claimed its triumphs. The numberless multi- 
tudes of white-robed saints, whose tears are 
forever wiped away, were once dwellers upon 
this earth, mingling with its busy scenes, 
assailed by its temptations, tried by poverty 
and pain, and bedewing their rough and thorny 
way with their tears. But, while they were 
here, they washed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb, and exhibited 
to a hostile world that saintliness which a 

divine Christianity only can impart. 

7 



" Take my soul and body's powers ; 

Take my mem'ry, mind, and will ; 
All my goods, and all my hours ; 

All I know, and all I feel ; 
All I think, or speak, or do ; 
Take my heart, but make it new." 

C. Wesley. 

" I cannot wash my heart, 

But by believing Thee, 
And waiting for Thy blood t' impart 

The spotless purity." 

C. Wesley. 



Holiness to the Lord. 99 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOLINESS HOW OBTAINED. 

ALL those systems to which we have 
referred in the previous chapter, aside 
from the truth of God as revealed in his word, 
have signally failed to accomplish what was 
hoped of them. "They could not make the 
comers thereunto perfect." No water of the 
Nile or the Ganges could wash away sin. No 
rites, ceremonies, sacrifices, blood of bird, or 
beast, or men, could remove either its burden 
or its blot. The world is turning away despair- 
ingly from them all. It has exhausted its re- 
sources ; it has failed in all its endeavors. 

And while this is true of all systems of 
heathenism, it is equally true of all systems 
of ancient or modern philosophy which have 
aimed to make men pure without Christ or 
his Gospel. Their pretensions are vain, their 
efforts fruitless. On the other hand, there are 
many who are called Christians, and some of 



IOO Holiness to the Lord. 

them earnest and sincere Christians, who doubt, 
and even deny, that it is possible for any man, 
even under all the redemptive agencies which 
Christianity provides, to become holy. Thus 
they add the system in which they profess so 
cordially to believe, to the many others which 
have failed to make men holy. For if Chris- 
tianity cannot make men holy, it is a failure. 
This, as we have seen, is its purpose, and, of 
course, if its purpose cannot be effected, it is 
so far forth a failure. But, as the system 
proposes to make men holy, it becomes us to 
regard the means or conditions through which 
this experience and this state may be realized. 

Provisionally, meritoriously, and effectually to 
accomplish this, there are only two agencies in 
the universe. The first, is Christ's sacrificial 
blood ; and the second, is the omnipotent energy 
of the eternal Spirit. It is to be feared that 
too many, in seeking to enjoy this grace, rely 
too much upon certain intellectual processes, 
certain outward means and routine duties. But 
the word of God knows nothing of any holiness 
aside from the blood of Christ and " the sancti- 
fication of the Spirit." All mortifications, fast- 
ings, penances, mental or bodily exercises, as 



Holiness to the Lord. ioi 

effective agencies, are, and must ever be, vain 
and fruitless. That means are to be used we 
shall see ; but they are to be used only as 
means for the purpose of securing the effective 
agencies referred to. And never, until the 
blood is applied, and the sealing, sanctifying 
Spirit is imparted, can the soul be made holy in 
the sight of God. It is all-important to guard 
well this vital point. There is such a tendency 
in the human heart to " go about to establish a 
righteousness of its own," that many are unwill- 
ing to " submit to the righteousness of God," 
or God's method, for making men righteous, or 
holy. If men could only make themselves holy, 
they would do so, in many instances, by making 
the greatest sacrifices, or performing the most 
painful duties. But fallen man can never restore 
himself to purity or God. It is only " the blood 
of yesns Christ his Son which cleans eth us from 
all sin!' It is only the Holy Ghost who can 
renew, restore, and sanctify the soul. If men 
imagine themselves to be holy without them, 
they are either fanatical or fanciful ; they are 
either hypocrites or self-deceived ; and their 
character and their lives will, sooner or later, 
give fearful or painful evidence of the unreal- 



102 Holiness to the Lord. 

ness of their pretensions. It is essential, then, 
if one would attain holiness of heart and life, 
that he proceed upon this ground. All other 
efforts will be vain and futile. This much 
granted, the following directions will be found 
to be of very great importance to the seeking 
soul : — 

i. There must be a deep conviction of the 
necessity of holiness. This is inwrought in 
the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit. He 
reveals to it the depth of its corruptions ; the 
strength of its depravity ; the want of conform- 
ity to the law of God, of submission to his will, 
of simple faith in his promises, and of obe- 
dience to his commands. And let it be borne 
in mind, in this connection, that the nearer the 
justified soul is living to God, and the more 
fully he receives and enjoys the gracious influ- 
ences of the Holy Spirit, the deeper will these 
convictions be. It is not the cold, formal, back- 
slidden professor who feels his need of holiness 
deeply and keenly, if, indeed, he feels it at all. 
If his spiritual condition is made known to 
him, he will be led, first of all, to see his need 
of a restoration to the Divine favor, and his 
reclamation from his wanderings and back- 



Holiness to the Lord. 103 

slidings. But just in proportion as the true 
child of God walks in his light will be his con- 
sciousness of his need of entire holiness. This 
sense of need is, sometimes, not only deep and 
painful, but well-nigh overwhelming. Look, 
for confirmation of this, at the experience of 
Payson, Edwards, David Brainerd, M'Cheyne, 
Bramwell, and a host of others in Mr. Wesley's 
day and since. With such a sense of remain- 
ing corruptions, it is not to be wondered at that 
very many have regarded the language of the 
seventh chapter of Romans as expressive of the 
feelings and experience of the justified believer. 
Many a child of God has been led to cry out, 
under the clear, steady, shining radiance of the 
Divine Spirit, " O wretched man that I am ! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death ? " referring thereby, of course, to his 
remaining corruptions, and not to actual sins 
and guilt. The conviction of inbred sin is 
often deeper and stronger than was at first that 
of actual transgression. It may be all well 
enough to look at holiness as desirable, or 
as beautiful ; but it is all-important to regard 
it as necessary. No mere sentimentalism will 
answer here. A holy God and his holy law are 



104 Holiness to the Lord. 

brought right into contact with an unholy soul, 
and it must shrink, and tremble, and be abased 
in the dust of the lowest humiliation. So it 
has always been when a holy God has revealed 
himself to his creatures. It was so with Job, 
and Isaiah, and Elijah. And so now, whenever 
God reveals himself to the soul in his spotless 
and absolute holiness, there will be a painful 
sense of its vileness and impurity. 

It is hardly probable that any earnest, deter- 
mined, or well-sustained effort will be made for 
holiness without such conviction. If efforts are 
made for it at all they will be only feeble, occa- 
sional, and spasmodic, leaving the soul as far 
from God as ever, or relapsing it into more than 
its former indifference. It is in view of the 
importance of this point that we feel that the 
great want of the Church, at the present time, 
is a closer walk with God maintained by those 
who are in a justified state. The first great 
thing to be secured is a satisfactory evidence of 
justifying and regenerating grace. Multitudes 
who profess to be Christians know nothing of 
this, or, if they have enjoyed this evidence in 
the past, are now destitute of it. The light 
which was in them has become darkness, and O 



Holiness to the Lord, 105 

" how great is that darkness ! " Many others, 
by trifling with the Spirit when he has been 
gently and sweetly drawing them toward entire 
holiness, have brought a mist upon their minds, 
and are now wandering on in darkness and in 
doubt. If such persons are ever delivered from 
their present unfortunate condition, they must 
diligently and humbly seek the illumination of 
the Holy Spirit, and study the pages of divine 
truth with an earnest desire to understand their 
true condition, and a willingness to be led wher- 
ever the Spirit of the Lord would have them go. 
2. Convinced of its necessity, there must 
be, further, a persuasion of the possibility of its 
attainment. No matter what may be our con- 
victions of the need of holiness, if we have rea- 
son to doubt whether it is possible to attain 
this state in the present life there will be 
an abandonment of all effort for its attainment. 
The human mind is so constituted that it will 
make no effort, unless by routine, for what it 
regards as an impossible attainment. O how 
many Christians are praying daily for the Lord 
to make them holy, who, if interrogated imme- 
diately after their prayers by the infidel, the 
skeptic, the unconverted, or the pharisaical pro- 



io6 Holiness to the Lord. 

fessor, as to whether they believed it possible 
for them to be holy, would answer promptly, 
No ! What strange inconsistency is here ! 
Are not such prayers, in reality, a mockery? 
If we do not believe it possible for God to 
make us holy, let us not ask him to do it. If 
we do not believe it possible for the blood of 
Christ to cleanse us from all sin, let us not ask 
that it may thus do. If we do not believe that 
the Holy Spirit can sanctify us wholly, let us 
not mock him by asking him to do it. If this 
state cannot be attained, let us cease all prayer 
and all effort for it. Let us be consistent with 
ourselves. 

But that it is possible of attainment we think 
has been clearly shown in the foregoing pages. 
If, therefore, after all, you do not believe that it 
is possible, you must believe that God com- 
mands you to be and to do what you can nei- 
ther be nor do. This conclusion, we think, 
logically and legitimately follows from your po- 
sition on this question, and you cannot escape 
it. Are you prepared to accept this issue ? 
You must either accept this conclusion or 
change your premises. If you abandon your 
false position, one great barrier is removed out 



Holiness to the Lord. 107 

of your way, and all your awakened energies 
should be put forth to obtain this glorious 
boon. For, if it is your privilege to be holy, 
it is your duty to be holy. 

3. Holiness must be sought specifically. You 
are not to merge your prayers, your efforts, or 
your faith into some general and not well-de- 
fined phraseology ; such as, a " deeper work of 
grace," " more religion," or even " a deeper bap- 
tism of the Holy Spirit." All this is well ; all 
is important in its place. But the object now 
in view is holiness ; this is what you feel that 
you need ; this you believe you may enjoy ; and 
now you must seek for that alone. Nothing 
short of this will meet the longings of your 
soul. " It is the vocation of your soul. It is 
the practical handicraft of your inner man. It 
must be begun, followed, and never ended. 
We are never to lose sight of the prize which 
we seek. By day and by night, in the closet, 
around the family altar, in the house of God, 
always, every-where, seek until you find. Re- 
solve, deliberation, continuous effort, are its 
motor powers. All your members are its flex- 
ile instruments. The Bible is its text-book. 
Morning, evening, noon, all the circling hours, 



108 Holiness to the Lord. 

are its periods of exercise. Prayer is its re- 
hearsal. God, answering, is its teacher. Christ 
is its pattern. Special, express, intentional, 
must this striving after holiness be, in order to 
secure it, like every glorious consummation in 
the world's history, like every solid triumph in 
individual advancement." * 

4. But not only is holiness to be sought spe- 
cifically ; it is also to be believed for definitely 
and distinctly. There is, indeed, a low degree 
of faith when we believe it is possible for us to 
be made holy. Multitudes have believed this 
all their lives, and yet have never clearly expe- 
rienced this grace. Something further than 
this is necessary. The points, already settled, 
are, so far, conditions of the exercise of this 
faith. But they are not its only conditions : two 
more points are still to be reached ; the one 
is entire consecration, and the other is unqual- 
ified submission. Many persons who are seek- 
ing holiness often speak of the struggle which 
it costs them to believe. We think that a 
more careful analysis of their mental states will 
convince them that the struggle lies, not in 
the difficulty of believing, but in the unwilling- 

* Bishop Huntington's Sermons, p. 95. 



Holiness to the Lord. 109 

ness to make full consecration and submission. 
In making our consecration to God we must be 
thorough. We must keep back no part of the 
price. We must cover the whole ground ; so 
far, at least, as we are able to do so. Some 
persons use the language, " I have consecrated 
myself to God, so far as I know." Well, no 
one can go further than this. We cannot go 
back of our consciousness. But the spirit of 
consecration covers all ; and whatever may be 
revealed to the soul as being unyielded, after 
this specific act has been performed, will be 
readily and cheerfully surrendered. 

Some persons entertain strong objections to 
the phraseology, often employed, " Laying all 
upon the altar." We would not contend for this. 
We are not, designedly at least, at any point 
contending for phrases or terminologies. It is 
Holiness that we desire. It is Holiness we 
seek. And, in order to this, we know that con- 
secration on the part of the seeker is essential. 
We are commanded, not as unregenerate per- 
sons, but as Christians, to " present our bodies 
a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, 
which is our reasonable service." Rom. xii, 1. 

In our efforts to make this consecration, 



no Holiness to the Lord. 

some points will generally be suggested which 
we had not formerly thought of. They may 
be matters of little significance, or of slight 
importance in themselves, and yet, now that 
the soul is standing in the clear light of God's 
truth and Spirit, they make themselves known 
and felt. It may be a habit long indulged, and 
which we have thought was innocent and harm- 
less ; it may be an article, or a style, of dress 
particularly pleasing to us ; or our reputation, 
which we have guarded so sedulously, and 
which has cost us so much time and effort to 
look after ; or our property, or money, that our 
hearts have, almost unconsciously, become so 
attached to. But something will strike us, or 
be made to appear to us, as it had never done 
before. And right at that point, whatever it 
may be, the soul will linger, hesitate, quibble, 
be disposed to shrink, or draw back. Here 
comes in the struggle. Here is experienced 
the crucifixion, sometimes the very agony, of 
death. But if we would be perfect, or holy, we 
must sell, or part with, all we have. It is truly 
wonderful that we should hesitate so long in 
doing this. The rightness and the reasonable- 
ness of this service cannot be questioned. But 



Holiness to the Lord, 1 1 1 

the doing it — that is the trouble. Little as is 
the offering which we have to bring, rich and 
glorious as are to be the rewards of our efforts, 
how hard is it, often, to give up — to yield all to 
God ! Here we are called upon to exercise the 
noblest power of our being — our will. With 
all our self-determining power, under the gra- 
cious influences of the Holy Spirit, we are to 
resolve, I will be the Lord's. I will give my- 
self up to him now , wholly and forever. 

Intimately associated, co-existent, and con- 
temporaneous with this is unqualified submission 
to God. This, of course, includes our will — our 
whole being. And in this is embraced the ques- 
tion as to the when and how He will do this 
work, and give us the witness that it is done ; 
and also as to the manner in which he will em- 
ploy our consecrated and hallowed powers when 
this work is wrought. In seeking holiness, 
as in seeking pardon, many have a Naaman- 
like spirit. They have it pretty well settled in 
their own minds how the Lord will do this 
work. They expect to receive this gift as some 
one of whom they have read or heard, and 
would scarcely, they think, be satisfied with 
anything else. But this ground is not tenable. 



1 1 2 Holiness to the Lord. 

It must be abandoned. Then, again, some 
would be very willing to be holy if they could 
be made greatly useful in the eyes of the 
world ; if they could go forth as flaming fire- 
brands, scattering the fire in every direction, 
stirring up the masses of the people every- 
where, and exhibiting how wonderfully they 
were endowed for their work. Others still want 
to live on the mountain-summits of religious 
enjoyment, with not a cloud to dim their vision, 
or a trial to disturb their peace. All such 
questions must be cheerfully and willingly com- 
mitted to God. Whether we are to do or suffer 
his will — to be active and public in our efforts, 
or to lie down upon a bed of suffering for weary 
weeks, or months, or years, seen by but few 
and known by but few ; whether our way in 
life is to be smooth, pleasant, and easy, or 
rough, thorny, and difficult ; whether we are to 
be greatly useful or seemingly useless — must 
be cheerfully left to His decision. We do not 
say that we are to be " willing to be nothing," 
as many say. We know of no requirement of 
God, either expressed or implied, which calls 
us to such willingness. The Lord wants us all 
to be something good, pure, holy, like himself in 



Holiness to the Lord. 113 

our character and in our bliss. There are too 
many who are passively willing to be nothing. 
And they are nothing in their religious experi- 
ence, or efforts, or benevolence. But the lot 
which God chooses for us is the best. Isaiah 
little thought what would be his mission, or his 
sufferings, when the seraphim touched his lips 
with fire. But what a mission it was ! " Go, 
and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but under- 
stand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 
Make the heart of this people fat, and make 
their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they 
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
and understand with their heart, and convert 
and be healed." Isa. vi, 9, 10. So he went and 
" stretched out his hands all the day long to a 
disobedient and gainsaying people," and finally 
was " sawn asunder " by them. So we cannot 
tell how the Lord may employ us when the 
baptism of fire comes upon us. But all this 
the submissive soul yields up to God. Its 
language is.: 

" Gome as Thou wilt, I that resign ; 
But O, my Jesus, come ! " 

Now, when these conditions are present, it be- 
comes the easiest and the most natural thing in 



114 Holiness to the Lord. 

the world, under the direction and by the aid of 
the Divine Spirit, to believe. Do you ask, To 
believe what ? I will not answer, To believe 
that you are holy — to believe that the great 
work is done. No, no ; but to believe God's 
word, wherein he says to you now, " I will re- 
ceive you ; " " I will sprinkle you with clean 
water ; and from all your filthiness, and from 
all. your idols, will I cleanse you ;" "The blood 
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin ; " " He is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness." Now, let your soul grasp these and 
kindred promises ; appropriate them to your- 
self ; rest in them ; doubt not, fear not, stagger 
not ; but hold on to them, crying out from the 
fullness of your heart, The blood cleanseth me 
now : I am the Lord's. And do this simply 
resting in the word of God, without any clear 
testimony, or any testimony whatsoever beside 
the word. And surely, up to this point, this is 
enough for your confidence and trust. " Thus 
saith the Lord" is the strongest ground for faith 
in the universe. You are not to receive the 
testimony or witness of the Spirit in order to 
believe ; but you are to believe in order to 



Holiness to the Lord. 115 

receive the testimony. When you have the 
witness, the testimony of the Holy Ghost, that 
the work is done, it is no longer a matter of 
faith, but an experience in consciousness, which is 
knowledge. This testimony of the Spirit is 
superadded to the testimony of the word, and 
to the testimony of our consciousness that all 
has been given up to God, and is a satisfactory 
assurance that the work is done. And this 
will be as clear, if not even clearer, than the 
witness of our justification before God. 

All that has preceded this work and witness 
of the Spirit has been the work of the creature 
and of God. All that follows is of God — is the 
work of the Holy Spirit. The cleansing by 
the application of the blood, the sanctification, 
the hallowing, the complete salvation — all — all 
is divine. It is to be feared that many go 
straightforward in this work up to a certain 
point, even where the human may, and does, 
meet the divine. But there they halt, and rest 
satisfied. The whole process has been intellect- 
ual, creature-work, with the aid of the Divine 
Spirit, always imparted to man as far as he 
wills to work on God's line. As a conse- 
quence of halting where they do, and not hav- 



Ii6 Holiness to the Lord. 

ing as yet received the cleansing blood or the 
mighty power of the Eternal Spirit, their future 
career is irregular and inconsistent, and some- 
times their lives are such as to bring reproach 
upon the cause of holiness. Now, if faith has 
thus grasped God's promises, as we have no- 
ticed, let it hold steadily there ; let the soul, 
which is now in a receptive attitude, wait pa- 
tiently the coming of the Lord. Let the door 
of the heart be kept wide open for Him to 
enter. And " He that cometh, will come, and 
will not tarry." He will come and abide in 
the soul. He will come and sup with us, and 
we shall sup with him. O blissful communion ! 
Even now, dear reader, if you are thus awaiting 
his coming, he is drawing nigh to you. With 
all his train of blessings, He is coming in to 
occupy the temple prepared for him. And 
when he comes in, you will be made conscious 
of his presence. " All his garments smell of 
myrrh, and aloes, and cassia." A heavenly fra- 
grance will be diffused through your soul. A 
peace he will bring "which passeth all under- 
standing " — a " perfect peace," which, while you 
abide in Him, will never depart. " And hereby 
we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit 



Holiness to the Lord. nj 

which he hath given us." I John iii, 24 ; iv, 13. 
This accords with the experience of Rev. J. B. 
Taylor, who says, in writing to a friend : " I 
said that the 15 th of September, 18 16, was, 
and ever will be, an eventful era to me. But 
there is another day to which I shall ever recur 
with as much, if not more, interest. It was 
the 23d of last April. On that day the Lord 
wrought a deeper work of grace in my soul 
than at any former period. Yes, blessed be 
his holy name forever ! he condescended to 
bestow a favor for which I had been longing 
for years, the witness of which I have enjoyed 
daily ever since. I cannot tell you what I have 
enjoyed from His fullness ; but let it suffice to 
say that my peace has flowed like a river, and I 
can testify that I have experienced more of the 
presence of the Lord than during my whole 
previous existence. The earnest of the pur- 
chased possession has been given to me, and I 
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and of 
the rest which remaineth for his people/'* 
That to which this sainted young minister of 
the Presbyterian Church refers has been the 
joyful experience of thousands of God's saints. 

* Memoir of Rev. J. B. Taylor, pp. 118, 119. 



But if I do live holily, I do not think that I deserve 
heaven ; it is the Cross of Christ that procures me grace ; it 
is the Spirit of Christ that gives me grace ; it is the mercy and 
free gift of Christ that brings me into glory. 

Bp. Taylor. 

" O let them all thy mind express, 
Stand forth thy chosen witnesses ; 
Thy power unto salvation show, 
And perfect holiness below." 

C. Wesley. 

Heaven is epitomized in holiness, and it is the true badge 
and livery of the heaven-born. 

Flavel. 



Holiness to the Lord, 119 



CHAPTER IX. 

HOLINESS IN THE CHARACTER AND LIFE. 

IT will be readily admitted that, if so great 
a work as the one described has been 
wrought in the human soul, it will entirely 
transform the character and the life of the one 
in whom it has been performed. Such a con- 
dition cannot exist without demonstrating its 
presence, not only to the consciousness of its 
subject, but also to all around. The outward 
as well as the inward man will be transformed. 
And yet this statement must be guarded at 
two points : first, so as not to expect angelic, or 
Adamic, or absolute holiness ; and, secondly, so 
as not to regard this liberty of soul as license, 
or as superinducing laxity in the character and 
life. 

When the soul is justified before God and 
renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit, there 
will be always, as a result, the transformation of 
the character and life to a more or less visible 



120 Holiness to the Lord. 

extent. No man in this state will live in sin. 
His outward character will be brought under 
the power of his inward life ; that new life 
which has been implanted in his soul. He will 
keep the commandments of the Lord ; he 
will observe all his ordinances ; he will be out- 
wardly blameless. Nor will he be under the 
dominion or condemnation of sin or of the law; 
He is, as a justified and regenerated man, deliv- 
ered from these things. So that when the 
work of entire holiness is performed and its 
fruits are enjoyed, the outward change in these 
respects will not be so observant, because that 
change has been already in existence, in some 
instances, even for years. In so far as honesty, 
justice, uprightness, truth, fidelity, and outward 
correctness of life are concerned, the change 
will not be marked. 

The painful fact is that, in too many in- 
stances, the ordinary life of professed Christians 
is very far below that of the required life of a 
justified believer, though even a babe in Christ. 
The standard and the style of ordinary Christian 
living is very far too low. It is this which 
cramps and cripples the energies of the Church, 
and which makes infidelity so rampant in Chris- 



Holiness to the Lord, 121 

tendom. It is this, too, more than anything 
else, which represses earnest longing and groan- 
ing after holiness. When those who are called 
Christians are seen at the opera, the theater, 
the circus, and the dance, and seldom seen at 
the prayer-meeting, the conference session, or 
the. class-meeting ; when they will pore hours 
over a novel, and give scarcely moments to the 
word of God ; when they will tamper with the 
wine-cup and cards, and spend a large part of 
the Sabbath in conversation about business, 
markets, stocks, or real estate, it is not to be 
expected that they should have much desire 
after holiness. And when such persons are 
urged to a deeper consecration to Christ, no 
wonder they often excuse themselves, saying 
that they " do not make any great pretensions 
to being religious." Just as if the very fact of 
their professing to be Christians at all did not 
lay them under the most serious obligations to 
" walk in all the commandments and ordinances 
of the Lord blameless." 

But while these things are, alas ! too true of 
many, yet there are those who, walking in the 
clear light and in the consistent life of the 
believer, have not only seen their need of holi- 



122 Holiness to the Lord. 

ness, but have actually come to its enjoyment. 
It is of these we now speak. 

I. Holiness places the soul upon a higher plane 
of experience a7id enjoyment. In its former con-. 
dition, as we have seen, doubts and fears were 
mingled with faith ; remains of pride entangled 
humility ; emotions of anger marred its meek- 
ness ; and the love of the world struggled 
for the mastery over the love of God. And, 
in fact, every grace of the Spirit was antago- 
nized by some opposing element. So says the 
apostle : " They that are Christ's have cru- 
cified the flesh with the affections and lusts." 
Gal. v, 24. Yes, they are crucified ; but they 
are not dead. Struggling for life, they trou- 
ble, perplex, and annoy the young Christian, 
and even some who for years have been en- 
gaged in the service of Christ, and yet have 
neither seen nor grasped their privilege in 
Christ Jesus. But when Christ becomes to the 
believer sanctification as well as righteousness, 
or justification, these antagonizing elements are 
removed from the soul. The mists and clouds, 
the shadows and fogs, which so often mantled 
and blurred and obscured the soul, are dis- 
persed, and the clear, steady radiance of the 



Holiness to the Lord. 123 

Sun of righteousness shines ever upon it. All 
these graces now exist in purity or simplicity. 

And as the experience is richer and riper, 
so is the enjoyment of the sanctified soul 
increased. We do not mean to say that the 
purified soul will be always in the experience 
of rapturous enjoyment. Not at all. It will 
have its seasons of sorrow, of heaviness, and 
of temptation. Providential darkness, too, will 
come upon it, occasioned by the failure of cher- 
ished plans, the vicissitudes of fortune, bereave- 
ments, sicknesses, and the like. Even the holy 
Son of God was " a man of sorrows, and ac- 
quainted with grief." Only once during the 
course of his ministry is it said that he " re- 
joiced in spirit," and that only in view of the 
success of his work, (Luke x, 21 ;) but more than 
once it is said that he "wept." John xi, 35 ; 
Luke xix, 41. He " groaned in spirit." "He 
was tempted in all points as we are." a He was 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." But in 
the midst of all these things there was, doubt- 
less, in the depths of his spotless soul, the con- 
sciousness of the Father's approval, the joy of 
communion with him, and the assurance of his 
love. He said himself of the Father, " / dj 



124 Holiness to the Lord. 

always those things that please kim." John 
viii, 29. And again, with a depth of meaning 
which no mortal can ever fathom, he said, " The 
Father loveth the Son." John iii, 35. And even 
when expiring in agony on the cross, although 
exclaiming, " Why hast thou forsaken me ? " 
yet he could still cry, " My God, my God ! " 

In a subordinate and humbler sense, it is 
even so with the holy soul. Troubles may 
arise and assail it ; temptations may distress 
it ; afflictions and adversities may fall in storms 
upon it, and it may have to pass through a 
seven-times heated furnace ; but, in the midst 
of all, there will be the consciousness of the 
Divine approval — " the peace of God, which 
passeth all understanding" — and an unstagger- 
ing, Abrahamic faith in the promises of a 
covenant-keeping God. It is well to have it 
understood that rapturous joy is not the char- 
acteristic of this state of entire holiness. Its 
grand, ever-abiding, ever-present tests are nn- 
donbting trust and undisturbed peace. Hence 
the Prophet Isaiah says : " Thou wilt keep him 
in perfect peace, [literally, peace, peace,] whose 
mind is stayed on thee : because he trusteth in 
thee." Isa. xxvi, 3. There will be joy at times — 



Holiness to the Lord, 125 

"joy unspeakable, and full of glory ;" " joy in 
the Holy Ghost." But this will not always be. 
2. When this condition of the soul is at- 
tained, there will be manifest an increasing 
saintliness in the life. It cannot be otherwise. 
For this state is not a transcendental or fanci- 
ful one. It is not a something which we 
can only ascertain the existence of by looking 
within. It is not Quietism, nor Mysticism ; 
but it is a reality, not only transforming the 
whole inward being, but also the whole outward 
life. " Holiness was meant, our New Testa- 
ment tells us, for every-day use. It is home- 
made and home-worn. Its exercise hardens the 
bone and strengthens the muscle in the body 
of character. Holiness is religion shining. It 
is the candle lighted, and not hid under a 
bushel, but lighting the house. It is religious 
principle put into motion. It is the love of 
God sent forth into circulation, on the feet and 
with the hands, of love to man. It is faith 
gone to work. It is charity coined into actions, 
and devotion breathing benedictions on human 
suffering, while it goes up in intercessions to 
the Father of all pity. Prayers that show no 
answers in better lives are not true prayers. 



126 Holiness to the Lord. 

Of religion without holiness, or the spurious 
pretense current under that name, the world 
has seen enough ; it has more than once made 
society, with all its reforms, go backward ; it 
has sharpened the spear of the scorner, and 
sealed the skeptic's unbelief. It has hidden 
the Church from the market. It has gone to 
the conference and the communion-table, as to 
a sacred wardrobe, where badges are borrowed 
to cloak the iniquities of trade. It has said to 
many an outcast and oppressed class, ' Stand 
by thyself ; the Master's feast is for me, and 
not for you.' It has thinned the ranks of open 
disciples, and treacherously offered to objectors 
the vantage-ground of honesty." * No words 
could more fully and correctly express these 
truths. It is this holiness in the life which the 
world demands, and nothing short of this will 
meet its demands. No professions, or shams, 
or appearances, or pretenses, will answer here. 
The keen eye of the worldling or the skeptic 
will readily penetrate through them all, and its 
rough hand will tear off the mask or expose 
the stolen livery. 

And that for which we contend is not an 

* Bishop Huntington's *' Sermons for the People," pp. 98, 99. 



Holiness to the Lord. 127 

impracticable or an impossible thing. It has 
been realized and demonstrated before this 
wicked world in a multitude of instances. 
Instances of it now are not rare or unknown. 
"Among all the men of the ancient heathen 
world," says an eloquent writer, " there were 
scarcely one or two to whom we might venture 
to apply the epithet holy. Probably no one will 
deny that in Christian countries this higher- 
toned goodness which we call holiness has 
existed. Few will maintain that it is exceed- 
ingly rare. Perhaps the truth is that there has 
scarcely been a town in any Christian country 
since the time of Christ where a century has 
passed without exhibiting a character of such 
elevation that his mere presence has shamed 
the bad and made the good better, and has 
been felt at times like the presence of God 
himself. " * 

The life is only the index of the existing 
conditions of the soul. No mere man can 
penetrate into the depths of our spiritual being 
and take exact cognizance of its states and 
experiences. God only searches the hearts 
and tries the reins of the children of men. 

* •' Ecce Homo" p. 185. 



128 Holiness to the Lord. 

But the test of all our experiences, of all our 
conditions, of all our professions, is the life. 
" By their fruits ye shall know them." " A 
good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit ; " "a 
sweet fountain cannot send forth bitter waters." 
This test the world around us can see and feel. 
Hence, our blessed Master has said, " Let your 
light so shine before men, that they may see 
your good works, and glorify your Father 
which is in heaven." 

This blamelessness of life of which we are 
speaking is not merely negative goodness. It 
consists not in merely doing no harm. But it 
is positive and decided, active and pronounced. 
Light is not merely the opposite of darkness, 
but it dispels the darkness, and illuminates all 
the habitations and homes of our humanity ; it 
gives heat to vegetation : it vivifies the world. 
So with this divine light. It not only scatters 
darkness, but it illuminates, blesses, conserves, 
and saves the world. The holy soul not only 
loves the Lord God with all its powers, but also 
loves its neighbor as itself. This love prompts 
to all holy endeavor, to raise the fallen and de- 
graded, to ameliorate the condition of the poor 
and needy, to cheer the faint and sorrowing, 



Holiness to the Lord. 129 

to bind up the broken and bleeding hearts 
around us, and to save the lost and perishing 
sinner. This is the holiness of the Bible as 
exhibited and exemplified in the every-day life 
of the saint. And it will be readily seen that 
if it were universal in the Church of God the 
world would soon be thoroughly redeemed. 

3. Such saintliness of character and life will 
azvaken the opposition of the ungodly world, and 
of a formal or Pharisaical Church. We are 
all of us prone to indulge the thought, and to 
embody it in language, that such a character 
and such a life would not only utterly disarm 
all prejudice, but constrain the admiration, the 
reverence, of every beholder. It doubtless 
will of some, but not of all. To say this would 
be to fly in the very face of the best-estab- 
lished facts of history. The peasant in ancient 
Greece who hated the good Aristides, and was 
going to vote that he should be put to death 
because he was tired and sick of hearing him 
called " The Just," is only the type of a very 
large class of men in every age and in every 
place. It is only necessary for us to ask the 
question, " How has the world treated the holi- 
est and the best men and women who have 



130 Holiness to the Lord. 

ever lived in it ? " to dispel the thoughts which 
many entertain and express. What has been 
the fate which its holy prophets and apostles 
have met at its hands ? Was not Micaiah cast 
into prison and fed on bread and water ? Was 
not the evangelical prophet Isaiah sawn asun- 
der? Was not the mournful Jeremiah cast 
into the filthy dungeon ? Was not Daniel 
thrust into the den of lions ? What does the 
Apostle Paul say of those whose saintly lives 
were such that " the world was not worthy of 
them ? " Were they not " stoned, sawn asun- 
der, tempted, and slain with the sword ? " 
" Did they not wander about in sheep-skins, 
and were they not destitute, afflicted, tor- 
mented ? " " Did they not have trials of cruel 
mockings and scourgings, of bonds and impris- 
onments ? " And how was it with the Son of 
God himself ? Did they not clamor for his 
blood, and cry out, "Away with him, away 
with him, crucify him, crucify him ? " And 
then look at his apostles and disciples. How 
did they fare at the hands of ttie Jewish san- 
hedrim and synagogue, and from the power of 
the heathen world ? Was not Stephen, the 
man "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," 



Holiness to the Lord. 131 

stoned to death ? Was not the heroic Peter 
crucified, and the wise James " slain with the 
sword," and the beloved John first cast into a 
caldron of boiling oil and then banished to the 
dreary isle of Patmos ? and did not all the rest 
seal their testimony with their blood ? And 
then look at the long list of martyrs since the 
apostolic age. The evidence is perfectly over- 
whelming. 

It is a painful fact for us to notice, too, that 
a corrupt, and fallen, and formal Church has 
been as bitter in its spirit and as fierce in its 
opposition as the godless world. Who cruci- 
fied the Son of God ? Who stoned the saintly 
Stephen ? Who beat the apostles and impris- 
oned them ? Who burned the very bones of 
Wiclif ? Who burned Huss and Jerome ? 
Who kindled the fires of Smithfield ? Who 
reared the Inquisition ? Who persecuted the 
Waldenses, and hunted them amid the dens 
and caves of their native mountains like beasts 
of prey ? Who planned and fomented the mas- 
sacre of Saint Bartholomew, and then hailed 
its hellish horrors with Te Deums and illumina- 
tions ? Who dragooned the old Covenanters ? 
Who ejected the nonconformist ministers ? In 



132 Holiness to the Lord. 

all these instances referred to, was it not the 
Jewish hierarchy on the one hand, or the 
Romish, or High-Church hierarchy on the 
other ? O, if holiness would constrain uni- 
versal admiration ; if it would call forth the 
praises of the world ; if it would give a power 
by which any one with whom we come in con- 
tact would be subdued ; if it would make its 
possessors to be regarded as angels or demi- 
gods, how many would strive after it ! How 
many, at least, would affect to imitate it ! 

But this is not the case. In fact, the very 
reverse of this is true. The Son of God fore- 
warned his disciples of the eternal antagonism 
there is between sin and holiness. M If ye 
were of the world," says the Saviour, " the 
world would love his own ; but because ye are 
not of the world, but I have chosen yon out of the 
world, therefore the world hatethyou? John xv, 
19. It is just as true now as it was in the 
days of the apostle, that " they who will live 
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." 
Not, it is true, is the persecution in every in- 
stance one of violence ; but sometimes one ot 
vituperation and scorn, and no less difficult to 
endure. The curling lip, the sneering, sarcastic 



I I dines s to the Lord. i;3 

remark, the pointed finger, the harsh, unjust 
criticism, will cut deep into the soul, and pro- 
duce keen agony and suffering. Let all, then, 
who would be holy, remember that they must 
be followers of Him, their cross-bearing and 
persecuted Lord, who trod the path of sorrow, 
reproach, and shame before them. " Let us 
go forth therefore unto him without the camp, 
bearing his reproach." Heb. xiii, 13. 

4. And yet, after all, the power of God's 
saints over the world will be proportioned to the 
amount of resistance which the world makes 
against them. This may sound strangely at 
first, but it will be seen to be true. A religion 
which lowers itself to the level of man's pas- 
sions and propensities, and with which, conse- 
quently, the world and the powers of darkness 
are at peace, will never do anything toward the 
elevation or salvation of mankind. Indeed, it 
will only serve to sink the world lower, while 
it strengthens its corruptions and brutalizes its 
passions. If the Church is to save the world, it 
must be lifted by its holiness above the world. 
It must stand upon a higher platform ; it must 
be girded with a greater power. The Jewish 
Church and the Roman Empire antagonized 



134 Holiness to the Lord. 

the early Church with all their powers. But, 
while they were persecuting its members even 
unto death, it triumphed so gloriously as to 
attract the attention and wonder of the world, 
and even to occasion the dismay of its bitterest 
enemies. It seemed that no opposition of the 
world or hell could withstand its power or its 
progress. It swept on like an avalanche, bear- 
ing down all opposition, and putting into the 
mouths of its heroes and conquerors this tri- 
umphant song : " Now thanks be unto God, 
which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, 
and maketh manifest the savor of his knowl- 
edge by us in every place." 2 Cor. ii, 14. The 
very " blood of the martyrs " became " the seed 
of the Church," from which there was ever up- 
springing a rich and a glorious harvest. 

We are aware that it has been said that any 
cause which is persecuted will flourish. This 
statement is made as if the whole success of 
Christianity could be accounted for from the 
fact that it was persecuted. Now, this is not 
really true. A bad cause may obtain notoriety 
by opposition ; but it will never obtain perma- 
nent success by that means ; and a good cause 
will not flourish because it is persecuted, but 



Holiness to the Lord. 135 

it may flourish despite the persecution. So the 
wonderful growth of Christianity is not to be 
regarded as the result of opposition, but be- 
cause it had in it the elements of truth, of 
holiness and purity, and was made powerful 
through the almighty agency of the Divine 
Spirit. 

The great Head of the Church has designed 
that it should antagonize every form of evil, 
impurity, and sin, and that it should come into 
direct conflict with the world and all the pow- 
ers of darkness. This, indeed, is the conflict 
of the ages. It began with the fall, and was 
pre-announced in the primal promise : " I will 
put enmity between thee and the woman, and 
between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise 
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
Gen. iii, 15. God himself has put this enmity 
against every form of sin and iniquity in the 
heart of every regenerated believer, and every 
one who is in Christ will be conscious, not 
only of a defensive, but also of a constantly 
offensive, struggle with " the world, the flesh, 
and the devil" — a trinity of foes. But there 
can be, there is, no doubt as to the issue of 
this struggle. True, it has been long, it is 



136 Holiness to the Lord. 

yet very far from being decided ; but holiness 
must triumph over sin, truth over error, and 
God over all his enemies. Holiness is not 
only purity, and love, and peace, but it is also 
power — power to conquer the world and bring 
it to the feet of Jesus. The world may hate 
holiness and persecute its possessors and con- 
fessors ; but it cannot frown, or reason, or per- 
secute, or crush it or them out of existence. It 
is the one great, all-convincing, overpowering, 
and unanswerable argument for the truth of 
Christianity. Hell has never yet invented a 
weapon keen enough, or strong enough, to 
penetrate this " armor of light." All its darts 
have fallen pointless from its shield and breast- 
plate ; all its lances have been shivered here ; 
and all its legions have retired from this con- 
flict defeated, crestfallen, and overwhelmed. 
O it is when the Church is " bright as the 
sun, and clear as the moon," that it is terrible 
to its enemies " as an army with banners." It 
is, then, on this chosen battle-field, with a 
proclaimed hostility, an eternal and uncompro- 
mising antagonism against sin, and worldli- 
ness, and unbelief, that the Church, arrayed in 
its beautiful garments of a blood-purchased 



Holiness to the Lord. 137 

holiness, and girded with the might of Omnip- 
otence, is to meet and hurl back all its foes, 
and not only to come off conqueror, but " more 
than conqueror, through Him who hath loved 
us." What a pitiable sight it is to see the 
Church dallying with its foes and seeking to 
effect a compromise with them ; and, in turn, 
scorned, and scoffed, and insulted for its cow- 
ardliness and pusillanimity : sitting in the 
dust, with the bandages of captivity upon its 
neck, and its garments all bedraggled in the 
filth and mire of worldliness and corruption, 
when it ought to be hurling disaster and defeat 
upon its enemies, and bearing its crimson ban- 
ner in triumph over the world. O that the 
trumpet-call of God may be heard in all our 
Churches, saying, " Awake, awake ; put on thy 
strength, O Zion ; put on thy beautiful gar- 
ments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ! " Then 
" the waste places of Jerusalem " will " break 
forth into joy," and "sing together ;" then " the 
Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes 
of all the nations ; and all the ends of the earth 
shall see the salvation of our God." Isa. lii, 
1, 9, 10. 



" Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare 
what he hath done for my soul." — Psalm lxvi, 16. 

"Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before 
men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels 
of God. But he that denieth me before men shall be denied 
before the angels of God." — Luke xii, 8, 9. 

"Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord." — Isa. xliii, 10. 

"Ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost 
part of the earth." — Acts i, 8. 



Holiness to the Lord. 139 



CHAPTER X. 

HOLINESS AND TESTIMONY. 

II 7E have, in the heading of this chapter, 
* * purposely avoided the use of the word 
" profession/' We have done this, not because 
of the literal or etymological signification of 
that word, but because of the ideas associated 
with it when used in this connection. It has, 
whether justly or otherwise I leave for others 
to determine, come to be understood that a 
profession of holiness implies self-boasting, and 
savors of egotism and spiritual pride. But 
not only so. This is not the scriptural word 
employed to express an avowal of this attain- 
ment, or experience, or indeed of any degree 
of Christian experience. The favorite words 
of the New Testament writers are, confession 
and testimony. Our Saviour says, " Whosoever 
therefore shall confess me before men, him will 
I confess also before my Father which is in 
heaven." Matt, x, 32. Paul says, "With the 



140 Holiness to the Lord. 

heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and 
with the mouth confession is made unto salva- 
tion." Rom. x, 10. The Apostle John frequent- 
ly employs the same word in his epistles. The 
word testimony, or bearing witness, is, however, 
more frequently used : " Because our testimony 
among you was believed." 2 Thess. i, 10. "Be 
not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of 
our Lord." 2 Tim. i, 8. John, "who bare record 
of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus 
Christ." Rev. i, 2. He declares that he was " in 
the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of 
God, and for the testimony of Christ." Rev. i, 9. 
He " saw under the altar the souls of them that 
were slain for the word of God, and for the tes- 
timony which they held." Rev. vi, 9. It is said 
of these victorious saints that " they overcame 
him" — the old serpent, called the devil and 
Satan — " by the blood of the Lamb, and by the 
word of their testimony." Rev. xii, 11. Again, 
" The dragon made war with them who have 
the testimony of Jesus Christ." Rev. xii, 17. 

When the Lord Jesus, just before his depart- 
ure from the world, gave to his disciples the 
promise of the Holy Ghost as the gift of power, 
he assured them that the design of its bestow- 



Holiness to the Lord. 141 

ment was to enable them to be " witnesses unto 
me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in 
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth." Acts i, 8. Often they declared to the 
people, when speaking to them of Christ, " We 
are witnesses of these things." Now this wit- 
ness, this testimony of Christ, was not only a 
declaration of what he is in himself, or of what 
he has done for the world, but it was also a 
declaration of what he had done for them. 
They were not only " eye-witnesses " of his 
majesty and glory on the mount, of his agony 
in the garden, and crucifixion on Calvary ; of 
his resurrection from the grave, and of his tri- 
umphant ascension into heaven ; they were 
also witnesses of his power to save, of his 
blood to cleanse, and of his Holy Spirit to 
renew and sanctify them. And this witness 
they bore in every sermon and in every place. 
In fact, their testimony would have been in- 
complete without this. The world might have 
asked them, " How do you know that Jesus 
can save men from their sins? How do you 
know that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth from all sin?" But to this their 
ever-ready answer would have been, " What we 



142 Holiness to the Lord, 

have felt and seen, with confidence declare we 
unto you." 

In all the relations of Christian experience 
in holiness we greatly prefer the word confes- 
sion, or testimony, to the word profession. In 
all such declarations it is not designed to state 
so much what we are, as it is what Christ our 
Lord has done for ns. It is not a testimony of 
ourselves, but a testimony to Christ. All the 
glory of our salvation belongs to him. All the 
praise, therefore, is due to him. When we 
speak of ourselves, our language should be ex- 
pressive of our sense of our own vileness, weak- 
ness, frailty, error, ignorance, imperfection, and 
nothingness. But when we testify of Christ 
and his salvation, there are no words sufficiently 
strong to express his glory, or the fullness and 
extent of his salvation. Are we "justified 
freely?" It is through "the redemption which 
is in Christ Jesus." Are we " begotten again 
unto a lively hope ? " It is only " through the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 
Do " we love him ? " It is " because he first 
loved us." Are we " cleansed from all sin " — 
"from all unrighteousness ?" It is only by his 
" blood." Every thing, in fact, connected with 



Holiness to the Lord. 143 

our salvation, in its beginning, continuance, 
and end, is " through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
And because it is so, because it is all of grace, 
"all boasting is excluded." The very idea of 
self-exaltation, self-glorying, is banished for- 
ever. Indeed, in proportion as holiness be- 
comes dominant in the soul, self sinks down 
until we are abased into utter nothingness, and 
" Christ is all and in all." Very much harm 
has come to the cause of holiness from an 
apparent boastfulness in its profession. This 
is entirely contrary to its spirit, and always 
evinces much shallowness of experience. It is 
the heavily-ladened head of wheat that bends 
lowly in the sunlight, while the light and thin 
stands upright and uncurved. 

2. Some have argued that, because such a 
profession has been made by some, it is better, 
therefore, if we experience this grace, to say 
nothing about it. This, we think, is an error in 
the opposite direction, fully as deceptive and as 
fatal as the other. If, indeed, this great work 
has been wrought in us, duty, gratitude, honor, 
fidelity, all demand that we should testify of it. 
This heavenly light was not enkindled in us to 
be put either under a bushel or a bed. No ! 



144 Holiness to the Lord. 

It is designed by its great Author to shine — to 
so shine that the godless world around may see 
it and know whence it comes. For what pur- 
pose is the " gift of power " bestowed ? Is it 
not to enable its possessor to testify more 
clearly and fully of Jesus and his love ? And 
there can be no doubt whatever that if the 
experience of holiness is attained and enjoyed, 
unless it is confessed, it will decline and die. 
And especially will this be the result if we 
shun the cross, if we dread the opprobrium, or 
shame, or reproach to which such testimony 
will subject us. From what we have said in a 
previous chapter it will be seen what a high 
estimate we place upon the testimony of the life. 
And if only one of these could be had — the 
testimony of the lips or the testimony of the 
life — we would say unhesitatingly, by all means 
let us have the latter : but both can be sweetly 
blended together, and by both we may glorify 
our Father in heaven. It is the order of the 
work of grace in the human soul that testi- 
mony follows faith. David says, " I believed, 
therefore have I spoken." Psa. cxvi, 10. And the 
Apostle Paul, quoting this language, says, " We 
also believe, and therefore speak." 2 Cor. iv, 13. 



Holiness to the Lord. 145 

It is " with the heart man believeth unto right- 
eousness ; and with the mouth confession is 
made unto salvation." Rom. x, 10. St. John 
says, "That which we have seen and heard 
declare we unto you." 1 John i, 3. 

3. This confession, or testimony, whenever it 
is made, should be with a holy boldness, mingled 
with meekness, humility, and fear. This is sub- 
stantially the direction of the apostle : " Be not 
afraid of their terror, neither be troubled ; but 
sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be 
ready always to give an answer to every man 
that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in 
you, with meekness and fear!' Fearlessness is 
to be coupled with fear, boldness with meek- 
ness, confidence with humility. It should ever 
be made to appear that, whatever grace we 
may enjoy, it is not' of ourselves, but simply 
and solely because of " the grace of God that is 
in us." " Wherefore let him that glorieth, glory 
in the Lord." Nor do we conceive that it 
would be profitable in a mixed company, under 
ordinary circumstances, to testify personally of 
this grace. There are appropriate times and 
seasons when it may and should be done, and 

we should gladly embrace them. Hesitation 

10 



146 Holiness to the Lord. 

at such times would cause us to be shorn of at 
least a measure of our spiritual strength, and 
make the light enkindled upon the altar of our 
hearts to grow dim. And did we persist in 
this hesitancy or refusal to testify of Christ, we 
should lose entirely the testimony of the Spirit 
to this work, and relapse, at least, into our 
former conditions. 

4. But w r e would say that where holiness is 
enjoyed, it will be the easiest and most natural 
thing for ns to confess it. That which is often 
so much dreaded by the soul when seeking to 
enjoy this grace, which seems indeed a barrier 
which never could be overcome, now readily 
vanishes, as the murky mists disappear before 
the rising sun. And, instead of finding it to 
be a cross too heavy to be borne to speak of 
this blessed experience, it becomes the high- 
est delight of the believer to declare to others 
what Christ has done for him. O with the 
soul-consciousness that " I am all the Lord's ; " 
that "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth me from all sin;" that the Holy 
Ghost has "wholly sanctified me in soul, body, 
and spirit," how can the believer be still ? 
Will not his 



Holiness to the Lord, YAfi 

" Tongue break forth in unknown strains, 
And sing surprising grace ? " 

Many persons, who have thought that if ever 
they should experience this grace they could 
not testify of it, now love to tell the wondrous 
story of redeeming love and grace in their full 
salvation. They cry out with the Psalmist, 
" Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will 
declare what he hath done for my soul." They 
say with Rev. James Brainerd Taylor, " I am 
ready to testify to the world that the Lord has 
blessed my soul beyond my highest expecta- 
tions." * With the saintly and sainted Ruther- 
ford they exclaim, " I verily think now that 
Christ hath led me up to a notch in Chris- 
tianity that I was never at before ; all before 
was but childhood and children's play." And, 
again, " I can say more of Christ now by expe- 
rience, though he be infinitely above and be- 
yond all that can be said of him, than when I 
saw you. I am drowned over head and ears in 
love. ... I never believed till now that there 
was so much to be found in Christ on this side 
of death and of heaven." f Or with the lovely, 
the beautiful Hester Ann Rogers, when her 

* Life of J. B. Taylor, p. 108. f Rutherford's Letters. 



148 Holiness to the Lord. 

soul had experienced this grace, " Lord, thou 
art wisdom, strength, love, holiness : yea, and 
thou art mine ! Love sinks me into nothing ; 
it overflows my soul! O my Jesus, thou art 
all in all ! In thee I behold and feel all the 
fullness of the Godhead mine ! I am now one 
with God ; the intercourse is open : sin, inbred 
sin, no longer hinders the close communion, 
and God is all my own ! " * 

There can be no doubt that the great and 
good Edward Payson enjoyed this wondrous 
grace in his latter days ; and he thus testifies 
of it in a letter which he dictated to his sister : 
" Were I to adopt the figurative language of 
Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land 
of Beulah, of which I have been for some time 
such a lieippy inhabitant The celestial city is 
full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its 
breezes fan me. its odors are wafted to me, its 
sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is 
breathed into my heart. Nothing separates 
me from it but the river of death, which now 
appears as an insignificant rill, which can be 
crossed at a single step whenever God shall 
give permission. The Sun of Righteousness 

* Memoir ui H, A. Ru s -cr>. p. 99. 



Holiness to the Lord. 149 

has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, 
appearing larger and brighter as he approaches, 
and now fills the whole hemisphere, pouring 
forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float 
like an insect in the beams of the sun, exult- 
ing, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this 
excessive brightness, and wondering why God 
should deign thus to shine upon a sinful 
worm." * 

These testimonies might be multiplied a 
thousand-fold ; but they are sufficient. 

* Memoir of Edward Payson, D.D. 



11 Xot in the tombs we pine to dwell, 
Not in the dark monastic cell, 

By vows and grates confined ; 
Freely to all ourselves we give, 
Constrained by Jesus' love to live 

The servants of mankind." 

C. Wesley. 

" O! if I might but speak to thee, or your herd-boys, of my 
worthy Master."' — Rutherford. 

" It were my heaven, till I come home, even to spend this 
life in gathering in some to Christ." — Rutherford. 



" Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? Then said 
I, Here am I ; send me." — ISA. vi, 8. 



Holiness to the Lord. 151 



CHAPTER XI. 

HOLINESS, AS RELATED TO CHRISTIAN WORK. 

'HP* HE great Head of the Church speaks to 
-*• his people now, in the voice of his word 
and by the voice of his providence, as he has 
scarcely ever spoken before. He calls upon 
them to " Awake ! awake ! " and not only to 
" put on the beautiful garments " of salvation, 
but also to " put on strength." And for good 
reasons is this trumpet-call sounding in our 
ears. The world is perishing all around us. 
The great highway to hell is worn and beaten 
by the numberless footsteps of immortal beings 
going down to its dungeons of despair and 
damnation. The Church, in many places, is 
asleep in its worldliness, fashions, and follies. 
Error is abroad in a thousand forms to deceive 
and destroy men. Infidelity and skepticism, 
assuming now a scientific form, and then steal- 
ing the very " livery of heaven," are captivating 
the intelligent as well as deluding the ignorant. 



152 Holiness to the Lord. 

Faith in God's word, in his promise, in prayer, 
in immortality, in heaven, and in hell, is laughed 
to scorn as a puerility unworthy of thinking 
men, or as a relic of an effete system or of a 
bygone age. Romanism is assuming the spirit 
and the tone of the " dark ages ; " and its imbe- 
cile head, Pio Nono, is scandalizing all good 
people by canonizing as saints some of the 
vilest men and women who have ever lived. 
Intemperance is raging like a desolating flood 
over all the land, blighting, and withering, and 
blasting all human happiness and hopes in its 
fearful and frightful career. Iniquity abounds, 
and the love of many waxeth cold. What shall 
be done ? 

To say that the Church is only partially 
awake to its position, its perils, and its respon- 
sibilities and duties, would be to speak mildly. 
Very many are " at ease in Zion." Very many, 
effeminated by wealth and luxury, with their 
piety so emasculated that nothing is left but 
the shell of a dead and soporific formalism, or 
the mere shreds of its once beautiful garments, 
are living in idleness and indifference, even 
while the gathering frown of Jehovah is set- 
tling upon their unsheltered souls, and they are 



Holiness to the Lord. 153 

crying, " Peace, peace." It is not to be won- 
dered at that many have thought that nothing 
but fierce and terrible judgments will arouse 
the Church from its slumbers, and purge it 
from its corruptions and abominations. There 
is, certainly, only one thing which can save the 
Church from such a visitation, and that is a 
universal " baptism of the Holy Ghost and of 
fire." Shall this be enjoyed ? 

But, while all we have said as to the condi- 
tion of the world and the Church is, alas ! too 
true, we cannot overlook the fact that the fields 
around us are whitening to the harvest. The 
doors are opening on every hand under the 
providence of God. Macedonian cries are 
ringing in our ears as they are borne on every 
breeze. Never was there the period when 
there was so much encouragement to labor ; 
never the time when Christian toil has prom- 
ised so rich a remuneration. And yet, from 
many of our pulpits Sinai no longer thunders, 
and Calvary weeps no more. Rose-water es- 
says, in honeyed words, are dealt out to fashion- 
able hearers ; and sin is palliated or glazed over 
to please godless worldlings and quiet their 
sometimes uneasy consciences. In the midst 



154 Holiness to the Lord. 

of all these things God asks, " Who will rise 
up for me against the wicked ?" And the only 
answer the Church and the world have ever 
returned is, " No one, unless he is brought 
under the power of Divine grace, and more or 
less under the influence of " the Spirit of holi- 
ness." We have no confidence in the perma- 
nent success of any reformatory movements, 
unless they are under the leadership and influ- 
ence of a living Christianity and a living 
Church. The Psalmist prayed, " Restore unto 
me the joy of thy salvation ; and uphold me 
with thy free Spirit. Then will I teach trans- 
gressors thy ways ; and sinners shall be con- 
verted unto thee." It was only after Isaiah's 
lips had been touched with fire that he could 
respond to the call, " Whom shall I send, and 
who will go for us ?" " Here am I ; send me." 
It was only when the coronals of fire were on 
the brow of the early Church that every one of 
its members became a living witness, testifying 
of " Jesus and the resurrection." 

I. Holiness furnishes both the disposition and 
the desire to work for the Lord. We cannot, in 
the very nature of the case, be co-workers with 
God, unless we are one in sympathy, in spirit, 



Holiness to the Lord. 155 

and in purpose with him. And just in propor- 
tion as the spirit of holiness sways the soul 
will be this disposition and this purpose. The 
very first entrance of the renewing Spirit into 
the soul of the believer begets this desire and 
purpose ; and how much more will they control 
and impel it when he has taken full possession 
of all its powers ! The believer will be willing 
to do anything for Jesus when he has conse- 
crated all to him. Paul was willing to be even 
" accursed from Christ for his brethren, his 
kinsmen according to the flesh." Anything 
which will help forward the kingdom of God, 
which will relieve or ameliorate the condition 
of humanity, or save or bless immortal spirits, 
will be cheerfully undertaken. Sacrifices will 
be regarded as nothing for the sake of Him 
who sacrificed all for us. Pain is sweet and 
labor is rest, under, the beaming light of his 
eye, and amid the river-like peace and unutter- 
able joys of His presence and smile. No gar- 
ret would be too high to be reached and made 
vocal with words of sympathy, utterances of 
prayer, and notes of praise. No cellar is so 
damp, so foul, or loathsome, or forbidding, but 
its wretched inmates, on pallets of straw and 



156 Holiness to the Lord. 

covered with vermin and rags, would be called 
upon to arise and see the heavenly light, while 
their physical wants would be supplied from an 
exhaustless store. No prison or dungeon is so 
damp or so dark but its doomed tenants would 
hear the proclamation of pardon through Jesus, 
and the clanking of their chains would be 
hushed by the whispers of his love. 

2. The spirit of holiness also furnishes the 
help needed for such work. Nothing but this 
will bear the soul along for weeks, and months, 
and years in this work. There are difficulties, 
discouragements, and, sometimes, fearful ob- 
structions in the way of those who undertake 
these services. No one, unaided by divine 
grace, would enter upon such .work, and if he 
did he would speedily abandon it in utter dis- 
gust or despair. But the same Spirit who 
gives the disposition and. the desire to work 
for God, gives also the help to do that work. 
Every Christian laborer is ready to acknowl- 
edge that without Christ he can do nothing ; 
while at the same time he realizes that, " Christ 
strengthening him, he can do all things. ,, 
When the apostles stood upon the threshold 
of their great work of preaching the Gospel to 



Holiness to the Lord. 157 

all the world, they were encouraged in their 
conscious feebleness and helplessness by the 
assurance, " All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth." That " all power " was 
pledged to them to aid them in their great and 
difficult work. Nor were they allowed to go 
forth upon their mission until they were " en- 
dued with power from on high." Hence the 
apostles and early Church were "strengthened 
with all might, by the Spirit, in the inner man." 
Thus they "strove according to His power, 
which worked in them mightily." "Not that 
they were sufficient of themselves to think 
anything of themselves ; but their sufficiency 
was of God." There was a constant reference, 
in all their labors, to the Power by which they 
were enabled to perform them, while their own 
weakness was as distinctly and as frequently 
acknowledged. The greatest of all the apos- 
tles even exclaimed, " Most gladly therefore will 

1 rather glory in my infirmities, that the power 
of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take 
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in neces- 
sities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's 
sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong." 

2 Cor. xii. 9, 10. This is heroic ; it is sublime. 



158 Holiness to the Lord. 

And it is this endowment of power, the power 
which holiness brings with it to the soul, 
which the Church, in its ministry and mem- 
bership, now needs to fit it for its high and 
holy mission. 

X >t only so, but holiness furnishes the 
very best, and the only absolutely necessary^ 
qualifications for tliis work. We do not now 
refer so much to intellectual qualifications ; 
they are to be secured in other ways. But this 
we may say, that holiness will clarify the intel- 
lect, enlarge the heart, and tip and touch the 
tongue with an unaccountable eloquence, far 
nd any natural gifts which the witness 
for Christ may possess. This is the one indis- 
pensable requisite for this work. Learning, 
whether classical, theological, or scientific, is 
good — is, indeed, exceedingly desirable ; but all 
may be possessed, while the one who has it is 
unfitted for the Master's service, and powerless 
for the salvation of immortal beings. If he 
have this power, this grace, however rude he 
may be in speech, or inelegant in manners, or 
unacquainted with the mighty tomes which 
contain the facts of science or the lore of the 
a res, however unheralded he may be bv name 



Holiness to the Lord. 159 

or fame, he will work wonders in the name of 
the Lord. The instances are multiplied where 
the infidel scientist and the skeptical doubter 
have been won to Christ, not so much, nor 
indeed at all, by the arguments of the learned, 
or the profound dissertations on the evidences 
of Christianity, which are so numerous and so 
powerful, but by the simple words, the holy 
life, and the sympathetic tears of some humble 
Christian. Neither philosophy nor science, 
nor belles-lettres, will ever, in themselves, save 
men ; there must be the mighty working of the 
Holy Ghost through a sanctified human soul. 
It is only when we are " purged from being 
vessels unto dishonor, and sanctified and meet 
for the Master's use, that we are prepared unto 
every good work." Where the qualifications 
referred to are possessed and consecrated to 
Christ, they will be helps to the Christian and 
the minister ; but if they exist alone, they 
may be hinderances to anything being done 
efficiently for God or for souls. It is objected 
sometimes, and often without foundation in 
fact, that those who testify to the enjoyment 
of Christian holiness spend their time in a 
sort of mental introversion, constantly dwell- 



160 Holiness to the Lord. 

ing upon frames and feelings, and thinking or 
caring for little besides. Such a thing as this, 
where it exists, is simply Pietism, or mysticism, 
and is very far from the holiness for which we 
plead. Certainly, the more holy any one is, the 
more closely he will endeavor to imitate his 
Master and Lord. And "He went about doing 
good." O, it is not a negative holiness which 
the world wants, but a positive, earnest, self- 
sacrificing, all-consuming holiness, which will 
expend itself in labors for the good of others ! 
It is not the holiness which shuts itself up in a 
monastic cloister or cell, behind high walls and 
barred gates, or that hides away in the seclusion 
of hermitages. The world has had enough of 
this, and it will not tolerate it any longer. When 
the disciples saw the self-consuming toil of the 
blessed Master, his burning, quenchless zeal, they 
remembered what was written of him . " The zeal 
of thine house hath eaten me tip? It was this 
same spirit of love and zeal which led the apostle 
to say of himself and his co-laborers, when those 
around them thought that they were beside 
themselves, "The love of Christ constraineth 
us ; because we thus judge, that if One died for 
all, then were all dead : and that He died for 



Holiness to the Lord. 161 

all, that they which live should not henceforth 
live unto themselves, but unto him which died 
for them, and rose again." 2 Cor. v, 14, 15. 
This spirit puts all Christian effort, self-sacri- 
fice, and self-denial upon a higher plane. It is 
not doing this or that merely because it is 
duty, or because it is proper or convenient, but 
doing it for Christ's sake. It is making sacri- 
fices of ease, time, friendships, and money; not 
because we must do so, but because we love to 
do it for yesus sake. Thus it becomes doing 
for Christ's sake, or suffering for Christ's sake, 
or sacrificing for Christ's sake, and even, if 
necessary, dying for Christ's sake. Holiness is 
love ; and if we do love the Lord God with all 
our hearts, we will love our neighbor as our- 
selves. And if this spirit of divine charity, or 
love, were universal in the Church, how much 
suffering, and sorrow, and poverty, and wretch- 
edness it would banish from the world ! Hos- 
pitals would be erected wherever needed for 
the sick and the suffering. Homes would be 
founded for the widow, the orphan, and the 
aged. Asylums for the poor, the blind, the 
mute, the idiot and insane, would crown all the 

land. It would wipe the tears from the weep- 
11 



1 62 Holiness to the Lord. 

ing eyes of sorrow ; it would speak words of 
sympathy, encouragement, and comfort to the 
weak, the unfortunate, the sorrowing, and the 
despairing ; and it would bind up the broken- 
hearted and relieve the distressed. Here and 
there, even now, in too isolated and solitary 
instances, this work is being done, and blessed 
results are realized. But how few of all the 
millions in our Churches are doing anything 
of this kind ! How many, instead of this, are 
bowing low and reverently at the shrines of 
Mammon, Fashion, Worldly Pleasure, and Vain 
Amusements ! 

Now, if any one should think that he has 
attained to holiness, or profess to enjoy this 
grace, and has not this disposition or desire to 
work for Jesus, it is clearly evident that he is 
deceived, and all his professions are worse than 
vain. Blamelessness, innocence, purity, are 
blessed conditions of Christian character ; but 
wherever they are found, they will manifest 
themselves by loving, earnest, self-sacrificing 
labors for others. In fact, Holiness never exists 
in a merely negative form, or merely in the con- 
dition of doing no harm. God, the fountain of 
all holiness, the infinitely and absolutely holy, 



Holiness to the Lord. 163 

is ceaselessly active for the good of the creat- 
ures he has made. Angels are ever on the 
wing, bearing their messages of love, minister- 
ing to the " heirs of salvation," or uttering ever- 
lasting ascriptions of praise. So, in proportion 
as we rise in the scale of holiness, we shall 
love to be employed in doing, or suffering, the 
Master's will. It may seem, at first thought, 
that those who are called upon, in the prov- 
idence of God, to suffer, to be confined for 
weary weeks, or months, or years, to beds of 
sickness, and are thus unable to engage in the 
activities of the Church, are exceptions to this 
rule. But, in reality, they are not. How 
many such a sufferer has done even more for 
Christ by his or her patient spirit, by heroic 
endurance, by triumphant utterances, by the 
clear testimony to the power and preciousness 
of Jesus to give comfort, and peace, and joy, 
and by words of counsel, exhortation, and love, 
to help on the cause of God and the interests 
and salvation of humanity, than those who 
have been out on the great highways of the 
world, in full health, toiling for the Master ! 
O it is true, 

" They also serve who stand and wait ! " 



r;_i Holiness to tlie Lord. 

It is not only the active doers in Christ's king- 
dom, but also the patient sufferers who are 
advancing the interests of his kingdom and 
accomplishing his gracious purposes 

_ The srir:: ■:: h:h::ess. :.-?.' tlir.^ in :he 
human soul, will lead it to work for Christ, 
without selfishness, false ambition, struggle far 
honor y position \ or emolument ; and without envy 
or jealousy of the good, or the rights and priv- 
ileges of others. As the Church grows in 
wealth, positions of honor, comparative ease, 
and yielding large salaries, are proportionally 
increasing. As a consequence, the temptation 
to ambition and self-seeking is strong, and, in 
some instances, may be overpowering. And 
just in proportion as that is yielded to, there 
will be realized the loss of spiritual vitality, 
peace, and power. Work may be done, under 
such conditions, ostensibly for Jesus, but, at the 
same time, more for the personal interest and 
profit of the laborer. The eye of such a one 
will be on self, and Jesus and his cause will 
be made secondary aud subservient to self 
There can be no doubt that the energies of 
many are weakened or crippled by the fear of 
displeasing worldly men, of losing their chances 



Holiness to the Lord. 165 

for the positions referred to, or of taking a 
course, or preaching a truth, or confessing an 
experience, which would be unpopular in the 
Church. And some, by listening to these max- 
ims or motives of worldly policy, and to the 
voice of the tempter, " have had their reward." 
But, oh ! at what a sacrifice of manly independ- 
ence, Christian integrity, and spiritual peace 
and comfort, is it enjoyed ! The wheels of the 
machinery of such a life are not only unlubri- 
cated, but they drag heavily, and the very axles 
of life are deeply worn by carking cares and 
soul-distressing anxieties. There is little time 
for looking after souls where self is dominant. 
There is little left for benefactions to the 
poor, the suffering, the distressed, for the 
cause of God and of humanity, where the loud 
and ever-increasing clamors for self-gratifica- 
tion demand all, and often more than all, we 
may possess. And there is but little satisfac- 
tion or comfort in the service of Christ which 
is so marred, and blurred, and clouded with 
false ambitions, envies, and jealousies. 

But this pure spirit of holiness not only 
expurgates sin, but also self, with all its train 
of evils and follies. And where these have 



1 66 Holiness to the Lord. 

held undisputed sway, now Jesus reigns alone. 
And how easy, how pleasant, to work for Him 
when his love inspires our breast ! What had 
before seemed so difficult, so almost impossible, 
now not only becomes easy, but delightsome. 
Even losses and crosses, sufferings and tribula- 
tions for Christ's sake, are not only endured, 
but rejoiced in. If there is one thing more 
than another which excites our admiration of 
the early Christians, it is the heroic spirit 
which they exhibited in the midst of labors,, 
which brought upon them tribulations and per- 
secutions for Christ's sake. When we see 
them "glorying in tribulation;" when we see 
them beaten, and yet "rejoicing that they were 
counted worthy to suffer shame for His dear 
name ; " when we hear the great apostle to the 
Gentiles triumphantly exclaiming. " 1 take pleas- 
ure in infirmities," reproaches, etc., for Christ's 
sake, it presents before us the sublimest moral 
heroism ever displayed in this world. And the 
same grace which was sufficient for them is 
available and sufficient for us. 

Love, supreme love to God, begets in us love 
for our neighbor, and bears us onward cheer- 
tullv, in all toils and sacrifices, to bless and 



Holiness to the Lord. 167 

save him. Where mere sentiment would be 
speedily exhausted, and even a stern sense of 
duty would flag and fail, this love not only 
inspires the soul with the "enthusiasm for 
humanity " so much applauded, but it is the 
mainspring of unwearied toil and unexhausted 
effort. What power cannot accomplish, what 
wealth cannot buy, love can do. And it is the 
religion of love which is to conquer this world. 
Truly did the eloquent Castelar say recently 
in the Spanish Cortes, " Mighty is the religion 
of power ; but the religion of love is almighty." 



" The bird that soars on highest wing, 
Builds on the ground her lowly nest ; 

And she that doth most sweetly sing, 
Sings in the shade when all things rest. 

In lark and nightingale we see 

What honor hath humility. 

" The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown, 
In lowliest adoration bends ; 
The weight of glory bows him down 

The most when most his soul ascends. 
Nearest the throne itself must be 
The footstool of humility." 

Montgomery. 

11 There cannot be a more humble soul than a believer. It 
is no pride in a drowning man to catch hold of a rock." 

Rutherford. 

" Xaaman was never humble in any degree, until he felt 
himself completely healed of his scaly leprosy ; but truly he 
was humbled and humble then." — H. Bonar. 



Holiness to the Lord. 169 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOLINESS AND HUMILITY. 

T OLINESS and humility are inseparably 
A ■*• and forever conjoined. The one cannot 
exist without the other. And we shall see that 
this is true in the least saint on earth and in 
the highest archangel in heaven. It has been 
often said, " Suppose that such a high attain- 
ment as entire holiness may be reached, the 
person making it would be proud, boastful, nar- 
row, exclusive, and puffed up with a sense of 
his own superiority." The objection is founded 
either in ignorance or in a misapprehension of 
the facts in the case. Those who speak thus 
evidently do not understand the nature or 
conditions of this experience. Sin and self- 
righteousness are the fruitful sources of pride, 
vain glory, and self-conceit. But in proportion 
as holiness exists in the soul and controls it, 
there will be genuine lowliness and humility. 
Those persons of whom the word of God speaks 



I/O Holiness to the Lord. 

as saying, " Stand thou here ; I am holier than 
thou," did not say this because they were holy, 
but because they vainly imagined that they 
were. It is not holiness, but the want of it, 
which produces the pride and self-boasting 
which are so much to be dreaded and con- 
demned. Look at all the saints whose charac- 
ters are recorded in the word of God for illus- 
trations of this truth. Hear the Patriarch Job, 
when the Lord had answered him out of the 
whirlwind. Humbled and subdued, and well- 
nigh overwhelmed, he exclaims, " I have heard 
of thee by the hearing of the ear ; but now mine 
eye seeth thee ; wherefore I abhor myself and 
repent in dust and ashes." Job xlii, 5, 6. Look 
at the Prophet Elijah. Great and wonderful 
things had been wrought by him on Mount Car- 
mel. But now, fleeing from the presence of the 
fiery and enraged Jezebel, he has come to Mount 
Horeb. There the Lord has met him, and 
commanded him to "go forth and stand upon 
the mount before the Lord." Then " the Lord 
passed by, and a great and strong wind rent 
the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks ; 
then there was an M earthquake," which shook 
the mountain to its deep foundations ; then 






Holiness to the Lord. 171 

there was a "fire," which blazed, and roared, 
and crackled amid its trees and shrubs ; and, 
after all this, there was a " still small voice." 
That was the voice of God. Did these won- 
derful manifestations of Jehovah's power and 
glory exalt him, make him proud or vain ? 
Nay, verily. But as soon as he had heard that 
voice, he wrapped his blushing face in his man- 
tle and went forth, humbled in spirit, and stood 
in the mouth of his cave. (1 Kings xix, 9-14.) 
And how was it with Isaiah, when he had 
enjoyed that wonderful vision of the Lord 
in his temple ? — when he had heard the six- 
winged seraphim shout until the posts of the 
door moved, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of 
hosts ? " — did he feel exalted by this wonderful 
privilege ? Hear him, as humbled in the dust 
he exclaims, " Woe is me ! for I am undone ; 
because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell 
in the midst of a people of unclean lips : for 
mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of 
hosts." Isa. vi, 5. Let us look at one more 
instance. At a comparatively early period in 
his religious experience the Apostle Paul had 
been "caught up into the third heavens." 
What he heard and what he saw there it was 



\J2 Holiness to the Lord. 

impossible for him to utter. Did this make 
Paul proud ? Did this exalt him above meas- 
ure ? True, there was given him a thorn in 
his flesh, to remind him that he was only a 
mortal man. What that was we may not fully 
know ; but, whatever it was, it was a very an- 
noying and troublesome thing. But we know 
that he says of himself that he was " less than 
the least of all saints." Eph. iii, 8. And his 
whole apostolic career gives evidence that his 
mighty spirit was " clothed with humility." 
And what is true of these saints is true of 
every saint of God in all the ages of the world 
and in every place. 

If we pass now, in our contemplations, from 
earth to heaven, we shall see that this is true 
of the heavenly world. All the glorified saints 
of that world prostrate themselves in adoring 
wonder and in deepest humiliation before the 
throne of God and of the Lamb. And angel 
and archangel, seraphim and cherubim, vail 
their faces with their wings in His presence. 

" Thee while the first archangel sings, 
He hides his face behind his wing 
And ranks of shining thrones around 
Fall worshiping, and spread the ground." 



Holiness to the Lord. 173 

If these things are so, then, certainly, it 
would furnish one of the saddest evidences of 
self-deception if a person should profess to 
enjoy entire holiness and at the same time 
exhibit a proud, unhumbled, and unsubdued 
heart. Unfortunately there have been such 
persons in the history of the Church, and 
whenever or wherever they have been found, 
they have always done great injury to the 
cause of Christ. However paradoxical it may 
sound, we say it is the unalterable law of the 
divine economy of grace in the human soul, 
that the higher it rises in nearness and like- 
ness to God, and in communion with him, the 
deeper and lower it will sink in humility and 
self-abasement. For, 

1. Such a sotcl will realize more clearly what 
its former condition was. The depth and 
strength of its depravity, the foulness and filth 
of its corruptions, the rebelliousness and per- 
verseness of its will, the multitude and aggra- 
vated character of its transgressions, and its 
consequent once-fearful exposure to the wrath 
of God, will be seen more clearly than when it 
was first convinced of sin. It will, it can, 
never forget " the • rock whence it was hewn, 



174 Holiness to the Lord. 

or the hole of the pit whence it was digged." 
Paul, in the very fullness of his joy, in the 
raptures of his hopes, and in the height of 
his triumphs, never forgot that he was once 
a "persecutor, a blasphemer, and injurious." 
I Tim. i, 13. There can be no doubt that the 
repentance of a holy soul will be, and is, more 
genuine, more heartfelt, and more profound 
than that of the awakened sinner. 

2. At the same time, the holy child of God 
will recognize that whatever may be his attain- 
ment or spiritual condition, all is oifree, unmer- 
ited grace. The brief utterance of the Apostle 
Paul, " By the grace of God I am what I am," 
is the heartfelt experience of every fully saved 
believer. This one fact alone, that all is of 
grace, forever excludes all idea of boasting 
from the soul. In view of this selfhood, self- 
righteousness, self-sufficiency, and self-inde- 
pendence sink to rise no more in the bound- 
less, bottomless ocean of redeeming love. 
Christ henceforth is " All in all." Hence, 
when he is " made unto us wisdom, righteous- 
ness, sanctification, and redemption," if we 
glory at all, we must " glory in the Lord." 

3. Just in proportion as the soul advances in 






Holiness to the Lord. 175 

holiness will be the enlargement of its views as 
to the extent of the provisions and promises of 
the word of God, and its consequent sense of 
the littleness of its present attainments. The 
higher the soul rises, the loftier and the sun- 
nier are the heights above it. The deeper it 
sinks, the deeper are the depths revealed to its 
wondering gaze. The more widely it traverses 
the immeasurable breadths of God's love, the 
more limitlessly will they stretch away into the 
infinities beyond. All that it enjoys at any 
one period will seem to be as only a drop as 
compared to the boundless ocean. All it has 
now attained will seem only as a crumb of the 
rich, abundant, and never-ending provisions of 
infinite love and mercy. Then when it looks 
at what it may be, and, further, at what it will 
be, and then regards what it now is, it is con- 
scious of its present nothingness, and cries out : 

" O that, with all Thy saints, I might 

By sweet experience prove 
What is the length, and breadth, and height, 

And depth, of perfect love." 

4. In the light of entire holiness, the believer 
will see more clearly his weaknesses, frailties, 
and imperfections. Even while " beholding as 



176 Holiness to the Lord. 

in a glass the glory of the Lord, and being 
changed into the same image from glory to 
glory by the Spirit of the Lord," he will 
often be made painfully conscious of his many 
defects. These will not bring condemnation 
upon the soul, for their existence is without 
the slightest concurrence of the will. But they 
will humble it into the dust, and make it feel 
the need of a constant application of the blood 
of Christ. It is very easy to account for the 
difference between the justified and sanctified 
soul. The justified soul is troubled because 
of inbred sin ; the sanctified soul is humbled 
because of conscious infirmities. What had 
escaped the notice of the justified soul, or was 
swallowed up in the sense of inbred corruption, 
now reveals itself to the clearer vision of the 
purified one. A speck, which would be unfelt 
and unrecognized on the palm of the hand, 
would give intensest pain to the apple of the 
eye. There is all this recognized difference in 
the conditions of the soul. But this difference 
is not about sins, but about infirmities. The 
justified soul hates sin and shuns it. Even its 
remaining corruptions, which, while they nei- 
ther reign in nor condemn it, are sources of 



Holiness to the Lo7'd. 177 

humiliation and sorrow. But the holy soul, 
freed from its corruptions, finds often in bodily 
disorders, nervous weaknesses, mental defects, 
constant shortcomings, and in consciously com- 
parative little and low attainments, cause for 
going down into the lowest depths of self- 
abasement. In fact, the nearer the soul gets 
to God, the more fully his light and glory shine 
upon it, the more deeply will it loathe itself in 
his presence. 

" I loathe myself when God I see, 

And into nothing fall ; 
Content if thou exalted be, 

And Christ be all in all." 

Any idea, therefore, that holiness will, or 
can, occasion pride or vain-glory, is utterly 
baseless. On the other hand, it might be 
argued that there is no genuine humility where 
there is not genuine holiness. There may be 
a feigned or a voluntary humility, but it will 
not be such as God requires, or as he will be 
pleased with. The holy soul does not, need 
not, try to be humble, or affect humility. Hu- 
mility is the legitimate and unvarying fruit of 
holiness. The well-filled heads of the bearded 

grain do not try to bend lowly and gracefully ; 

12 



' N Holiness to the Lord. 

their own weight gives them their graceful and 
gentle curve as, ripened into golden hues, they 
flash in the sunlight and invite the reaper's 
sickle 5 the soul, enriched and filled with 
the fullness of God, bows down, under the very 
weight of the glory which fills it, in lowliest 
adoration and humiliation before its God. To 
be clothed with holiness, then, is to be " clothed 
with humility? 

In becoming like God, the holy soul beholds 
in him such infinite perfections as cause it to 
prostrate itse.: ever before him. Knowledge 
puff eth up ; power may exalt the mind ; but 
love, "the love of God shed abroad in the 
heart," will humble and subdue. It is well said 
by Lord Bacon : " The angels, aspiring to be 
like God in power, transgressed and fell : I 
will ascend, and be like the Most High.' Isa. 
14. And man, aspiring to be like God in 
knowledge, transgressed and fell : ' Ye shall be 
as gods, knowing good and evil,' Gen. iii, 5 ; 
but in aspiring to be like God in goodness or 
charity — love — neither man nor angel can or 
asgressJ * jJod would have us be like 
himself: not in omnipotence, not in omnis- 

* Bacon's " Nmntm Organum" p. 292. 



Holiness to the Lord. 179 

cience, but in love. " God is love ; and he that 
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in 
him." 1 John iv, 16. So he who loves most is 
most like God ; and the more he is thus like 
God, the more holy and humble he is. No soul 
was ever yet humbled by sin. It may be hum- 
bled on account of sin because it has sinned, 
but never by its presence or power. It is 
holiness, it is love, that humbles. If we would 
then be truly humble, let us aim to be truly 
holy. And if the believer is truly longing after 
holiness, his earnest cry will be — 

" Fully in my life express 
All the heights of holiness ; 
Sweetly let my spirit prove 
All the depths of humble love." 



" And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will 
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is 
tried : they shall call on my name, and I will hear them : I 
will say, It is my people : and they shall say, The Lord is 
my God." — Zech. xiii, 9. 

" O what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace 
of my Lord Jesus ! Grace tried is better than grace, and it 
is more than grace ; it is glory in its infancy. Who knoweth 
the truth of grace without a trial ? And how soon would 
faith freeze without a cross ! Why should I start at the plow 
of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows in my soul ? I know 
that he is no idle husbandman ; he purposeth a cross. 

Rutherford. 

" The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown ! 
No traveler e'er reached that blest abode 
Who found not thorns and briers on the road." 

Cowper. 



Holiness to the Lord, 181 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HOLINESS, HOW PERFECTED. 

T T has been stated already that a condition 
J- of entire holiness does not, in its first or 
earlier stages, imply maturity or perfectedness 
in grace. When all the impurity and defile- 
ment of sin are cleansed from the heart, and 
when nothing contrary to love dwells within it, 
it is then, in a scriptural sense, holy. And yet 
that new condition, now grasped and enjoyed 
by faith, may exist in connection with much of 
weakness, immaturity, and frailty. Hence the 
Apostle Paul says, " Having therefore these 
promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse our- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, 
perfecting Iwliness in the fear of God." 2 Cor. 
vii, 1. Again, the Apostle Peter writes, "But 
the God of all grace, who hath called us unto 
his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that 
ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, 
stablish, strengthen, settle you." 1 Pet. v, 10. 



1 82 Holiness to the Lord. 

Then again we read, in the Epistle to the He- 
brews, of "the spirits of just men made per- 
fect." Heb. xii, 23. When St. Paul speaks of 
his own experience, in writing to the Philippians, 
he says, " Xot as though I had already attained, 
either were already perfect : " (rere/xlojua^) per- 
fected, (hi, 12.) And then again, in the 15th 
verse, he says, " Let us therefore, as many as be 
perfect, (t&Xuoi,) be thus minded." There was 
a sense in which they were perfect then ; but 
there was a higher sense in which they were to 
be perfected, in the future and fuller develop- 
ment of their experience on earth, and the 
completion of the work of redemption, in their 
resurrection and glorification in heaven. There 
are those who regard holiness, entire holiness, 
as an ultimate point, beyond which there is no 
further growth or development. Such persons 
make a fearful, if not a fatal, mistake, and often 
run into the wildest vagaries or the most dan- 
gerous fanaticism. Instead of its being an 
ultimate point, it is only a higher plane of 
experience in which the soul is better prepared 
to rise still higher into all the life of God. 

1. Entire holiness furnishes the most favor- 
able conditions for growth toward maturity. As 



Holiness to the Lord. 183 

an illustration of this, we may take the follow- 
ing : " Here is a beautiful garden-plot. The 
soil is rich ; the plants, shrubs, and flowers are 
all of a rare and costly kind, and have been 
carefully planted, or placed in good and pre- 
pared ground. But soon the seedlings of nox- 
ious weeds, which had been concealed in the 
soil, are seen to be germinating and growing 
rapidly ; their roots become entwined with the 
roots of the plants ; and their subsequent 
growth overshadows plant and flower, so that 
they cannot derive the full benefit of soil or 
sunshine, rain or dew. Yet these plants and 
flowers may, and do, grow and bloom under all 
these disabilities. Now suppose that all these 
weeds are carefully removed, so that no unfa- 
vorable influence is exerted on the one hand, 
and the full benefit of air and sunshine, rain 
and dew, is realized, what a difference there 
will be in the rapidity of the growth, and the 
beauty and maturity of plants and flowers ! So 
with the soul made free from sin, and purified 
from its defilements and stains."* It has now 
its highest earthly conditions of growth. And 
although still encumbered and embarrassed by 

* "Entire Sanetification." — Alethodist Quar. Review, 1S67. 



184 Holiness to the Lord. 

the presence of frailties and weaknesses, both 
mental and physical, yet it grows toward ma- 
turity with a rapidity hitherto unrealized and 
unknown. 

2. The soul now is more fully fortified against 
temptation, and more sensitive to the presence of 
sin and evil of every kind. All its foes are now 
without. All its temptations come from without. 
There is nothing within to respond to tempta- 
tion. True, there is still a possibility of yielding 
to temptations, and a liability to fall under the 
power of the tempter ; yet the holy soul is placed 
upon high vantage ground against every assault 
of the Evil One. Hitherto its most fearful strug- 
gles had been with self and inbred sin, acted 
upon by the tempter from without. But now 
there is no foe within the city of Man-Soul, 
as Bunyan says ; all are outside of its walls ; 
and, although they may rage and roar without, 
there is peace and there is quiet within the soul. 
Then, too, it is girded with a power of which it 
had not been conscious before. '"' Strengthened 
with all might, by the Spirit in the inner man," 
it is " strong in the Lord and in the power of 
his might." The purified believer is dwelling, 
is abiding in Christ Jesus. And what can 



Holiness to the Lord. 185 

separate him from His love ? " Tribulation, per- 
secution, distress, famine, nakedness, peril, or 
sword ? " " Nay, in all these things he is more 
than conqueror, through Him that loved us." 
Rom. viii, 35, 37. Most probably, the temptation 
which will now assail the holy saints of God will 
be more fierce and terrible than any in their 
former experience. The great Adversary well 
knows their security and their strength in 
Christ, and all the terrible enginery of hell 
will be brought to bear against them. Their 
faith, their grace, will be tried as by fire. 

"Hell thrown wide, will 

Pour all its flames around their head." 

But Still, 

" Like Moses' bush, they'll mount the higher, 
And flourish, unconsumed, in fire." 

Now, too, the conscience becomes " quick as 
the apple of an eye" — sensitive, keenly alive 
to the presence of sin, shrinking from its very 
approach, and " shunning the very appearance 
of evil." And thus victorious and watchful, 
not overcome by sin or Satan, holy saints will 
develop rapidly in all the graces of the Spirit ; 
their " fruit is unto holiness, and the end ever- 
lasting life." 



1 86 Holiness to the Lord. 

3. All holy duties and privileges are now 
prized and employed as so many means for the 
growth of the soul in holiness. A small class 
of fanatics appeared a few years ago, who pro- 
fessed to be so holy that they no more needed 
the means of grace. But their professions and 
pretensions evinced, either that they were 
greatly deceived, or that they were laboring 
under mental aberration. This, we think, is 
the most charitable view which can be taken 
of such professions. Instead of and directly 
contrary to this, the holy soul is now more dil- 
igent than ever in the use of all the means 
of grace. And even those duties which were 
heretofore irksome and distasteful are now 
attended to with constancy and delight. New 
light now dawns upon the sacred page, new 
sweetness is found in the promises, and a new 
relish is experienced for all its blessed truths. 
Prayer is loved, and its seasons longed for. 
Indeed, prayer becomes the habit of the soul. 
Now it knows, at least, something of what is 
meant by "praying without ceasing, and in 
every thing giving thanks." The Sabbath is 
prized and loved as never before. Its dawn- 
ing light is joyfully welcomed, and its blessed 






Holiness to the Lord. 187 

hours, with all their gracious privileges, yield 
unspeakable pleasure and profit. To such a 
one the " Lord's Supper " is a " feast of fat 
things." He eats the bread, but feeds, mean- 
while, on Jesus. He drinks the cup, but faith 
beholds the precious blood and realizes its 
cleansing power. And so on with all his du- 
ties, public and private, in the family, the 
house of God, in the closet, in the social meet- 
ing, and in all his intercourse with, and efforts 
for the salvation of, ungodly men. Every thing 
will be done cheerfully, heartily, as " unto the 
Lord, and not as unto men." 

4. Faith now realizes the momentary cleansing 
of the blood of Christ. We do not mean to say 
that the holy man is, or can be, every moment 
thinking of this, or by any mental state actu- 
ally realizing this. This is literally impossible. 
To illustrate this : there is no act we perform 
so constantly and continuously as breathing. 
Yet how seldom we pause to think whether 
we are breathing or not ! And yet at every 
instant this process is going on, and when our 
attention is called to it we are immediately 
conscious of the fact. It is so with faith's 
exercise on the blood of Christ. For hours 



1 88 Holiness to the Lord. 

together we may not have our thoughts turned 
to the fact whether or not the blood of Christ 
cleanseth us. We may be absorbed in busi- 
ness, or in family cares, or in study, or watch- 
ing by the bedside of the sick or dying sufferer. 
But when we look within and interrogate our- 
selves, u Does the blood now cleanse my soul 
from all sin ? " the joyful answer comes welling 
up from the depths of our consciousness that 
it does. Thus this faith, as well as prayer, be- 
comes the state of the soul, its constant habit. 
While the act of faith is, in most instances, a 
conscious act, yet there is what may be called 
the believing attitude of the soul y and this may 
be its constant condition, although we may not 
always be conscious of its existence, simply 
because our attention is not called to it. And 
thus, under these cleansing processes, the soul 
rises higher in the enjoyment of purity and the 
bliss which results therefrom. 

5. All the dispensations of Providence are now 
more firily realized as working together for the 
good of the saint of God. Not that even the 
holiest believer can comprehend the why and 
the wherefore of God's dealings with him. 
This is not necessary to the result referred to. 



Holiness to the Lord. 189 

All we need to know is the fact that " all 
things work together for good to them that 
love the Lord " — that those " light afflictions 
which are but for a moment, are working out 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory." Indeed, the revealed and proclaimed 
design of all our afflictions and trials is our 
perfection in holiness. The Apostle Paul says, 
" Furthermore, we have had fathers of our 
flesh which corrected us, and we gave them 
reverence : shall we not much rather be in sub- 
jection unto the Father of spirits, and live ? 
For they verily for a few days chastened us after 
their own pleasure ; but he for our profit, that 
we might be partakers of his holiness!' Heb. xii, 
9, 10. The fiery furnace is employed to melt 
off all the dross and defects of our soul, that 
the pure image of Jesus may be reflected from 
its transparent depths. The great Head of the 
Church sits " as a refiners fire, and as a puri- 
fier of silver," watching the whole process, not 
suffering the fire to burn too intensely, and yet 
completing the great purposes of his love. 
Suppose that the silver in the fining-pot had 
the power of feeling and of speech. We might 
hear it saying, " O, this fire is very hot ; I 



iqo Holiness to the Lord. 

know not how I can endure it any longer. 
These elements, which are now dissolving" and 
melting away from me, have been bound up 
with my very existence so long that I am 
pained to part with them. What shall I do ? " 
But the Refiner might answer, " I know that 
the fire is really doing you no injury ; that the 
loss of these particles, instead of injuring you, 
will only add to your luster, and increase your 
brightness, and beauty, and value." So the 
saint of God often says, in the midst of the 
fiery trials which are permitted to try him, 
u These afflictions, losses, and crosses are 
severe ; I do not know how I can much longer 
bear them. The loss of my children, of my 
propertv, of my friends, of my health, or the 
suffering of so much bodily pain, or nervous 
disorders, seems, at times, more than I can 
endure. And yet the blessed Master speaks 
in his word, and says, " That the trial of your 
faith, being much more precious than of gold 
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might 
be found unto praise and honor and glory at 
the appearing of Jesus Christ." I Pet. i, 7. And 
again, " Beloved, think it not strange concern- 
ing the fierv trial which is to try you. as 



Holiness, to the Lord. 191 

though some strange thing happened unto 
you : but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers 
of Christ's sufferings ; that, when his glory 
shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with 
exceeding joy." 1 Pet. iv, 12, 13. The count- 
less numbers of the white-robed, the palm- 
bearing, and the crowned, which St. John saw 
in his vision, went up to the throne " through 
great tribulation." True, they had "washed 
their robes and made them white in the blood 
of the Lamb ; " which blood was, doubtless, the 
meritorious cause of their salvation ; and yet the 
tribulation entered as a factor into their experi- 
ence, and into the process of their preparation for 
the heavenly world. This wonderful, and often 
mysterious, process is explained by the apostle 
when he says, in writing to the Church of 
Rome, " Tribulation worketh patience ; and pa- 
tience, experience ; and experience, hope : and 
hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love 
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
Holy Ghost which is given unto us." Rom. v, 
3-6. So it is always in the Divine econ- 
omy toward saints. Afflictions work out glory, 
tribulations work patience, and sufferings are 
crowned with "an exceeding and eternal weight 



192 Holiness to the Lord. 

of glory." We would not have it to be gath- 
ered from anything that we have said, that 
sufferings and trials are to be sought, or 
voluntarily imposed, as doubtless many of the 
early Christians sought martyrdom ; this would 
lead to the idea of salvation by our own works 
and sufferings. No : the blood of Christ is 
the only meritoriotLS ground of our salvation; 
but afflictions, trials, and sorrows are means, 
instruments, which our heavenly Father em- 
ploys to fit us the more fully for his everlasting 
kingdom. One old writer has well said that 
" Afflictions are our Fathers jewelers, who 
are constantly working to add pearls to our 
crowns." And another has said, "Those jew- 
els which our heavenly Father prizeth most 
he has oftenest his tools upon." O how won- 
derful are the processes which our Father is 
carrying on constantly for the maturing, the 
perfecting of his saints ! But the processes 
are not more wonderful than the design is glo- 
rious. When we shall stand before the eternal 
throne, and see all the way over which the 
Lord hath led us, what seem to us now such 
dark and unsolvable enigmas, such severe 
afflictions, such almost unendurable trials, such 



Holiness to the Lord. 193 

seven-times-heated fiery furnaces, will then be 
evolved before our wondering eyes as all bright 
with the light, and radiant with the glory, and 
sparkling with the gems of eternity. Thus, 

" Sorrow touched by Him grows bright, 

With more than rapture's ray ; 
As darkness shows us worlds of light 

We never saw by day." 
13 



" I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of 
present happiness, I shall do more for God's glory and the 
good of men, and I shall have the fullest reward in eternity, 
by maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ's blood, 
by being filled with the Spirit at all times, and by attaining 
the most entire likeness to Christ in mind, will, and heart, 
that it is possible for a redeemed sinner to attain in this 
world." — M'CHEYNE. 

" As some rare perfume, in a vase of clay, 
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 

So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul, 

All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown." 

H. B. Stowe. 

"I am every way in your case, as hard-hearted and as dead 
as any man ; but yet I speak to Christ through my sleep." — 
Rutherford. 



Holiness to the Lord. 195 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HOLINESS THE SOURCE OF THE HIGHEST BLISS 
OF WHICH THE SOUL IS CAPABLE. 

r T is not merely our duty and our privilege 
■*■ to be holy ; it is not only proper and right 
that we should be holy : but God, the infinitely 
holy and good, has blended holiness and happi- 
ness together, not only in this world, but also 
in the world which is to come. Unholiness, in 
all its fearful gradations, is unhappiness ; and 
when it exists uncontrolled and unrelieved, it is 
Hell. The utter absence of all holiness, and of 
all the agencies by which it can be produced, 
creates the stinged, envenomed, and deathless 
worm, and kindles the quenchless, everlasting 
fire-sheet of that world of woe. But holiness, 
in all its stages, is bliss ; and in its perfection, 
its highest conditions, it is Heaven. It must 
be so ; for there is perfect harmony between 
the holy soul and God. All controversy with 
Him is at an end. The rebellion of the soul 



196 Holiness to the Lord. 

against its God — his authority, his law, and his 
character — is subdued. Its raging enmity is 
destroyed. The anger, the wrath of God is 
taken away, and now he comforts the soul. 
A reconciliation has been effected, on condi- 
tions which have not compromised the sover- 
eign nor destroyed the sinner. Peace has been 
proclaimed — "peace with God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." The will, so long unsub- 
dued, so long in opposition to God, now exer- 
cises its powers in sweet acquiescence with 
the will of God. As a consequence, the per- 
turbations which once troubled the soul have 
been hushed into calm. The anxieties, the 
dreads, the fears of death, judgment, and eter- 
nity, no longer exist. There is no more con- 
demnation, no more guilt, no more wrath. 
And not only so, 

1. These barriers \ t/iese disturbing eauses hav- 
ing been removed, the son/ is now bronglit into 
intimate union and blissful communion with 
God. It is of this that the beloved John 
speaks : " Truly our fellowship is with the 
Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." 1 John 
i, 3. And again, " If we walk in the light, as 
He is in the light, zve have fellowship one with 



Holiness to the Lord, 197 

another" Ver. 7. This Jesus promised to his 
disciples. " He that hath my commandments 
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me : and 
he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, 
and I will love him, and will manifest myself 
to him." And when Judas, not Iscariot, 
said, " How is it that Thou wilt manifest thy- 
self unto us, and not unto the world ? Jesus 
answered and said unto him, If a man love 
me, he will keep my words : and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him, 
and make our abode with him" John xiv, 
21-23. How wonderful, how perfectly over- 
whelming, is this thought, that the Eternal 
God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost — will come and make his abode in the 
holy soul ! And yet the promise is made so 
clearly, and so frequently repeated in various 
forms, that no doubt can be entertained of its 
truthfulness and reality. This, indeed; is " the 
mystery," hid from the ages and generations, 
even " Christ in you the hope of glory." 
" He," says the beloved John, " that dwelleth 
in love, dwelleth in God, and God dwelleth in 
him." And if God, the source of all bliss, 
dwells in the soul, then, certainly, it niyi^t 



ig8 Holiness to the Lord. 

have a bliss unspeakable and unknown to 
worldly and sensual minds. Christ has now 
come into the wide-opened door of the soul to 
sup with it, and O how blissful is the repast ! 
His smile cheers and illumines it. His voice 
hushes all its fears and alarms, and inspires it 
with courage and confidence. The joy which 
it realizes is " The joy of the Lord!' The peace, 
which like a mighty garrison keeps it, is " the 
peace of God which passeth all understanding." 
No wonder that the Psalmist, in the fullness of ' 
his soul, exclaims, " In Thy presence there is 
fullness of joy ; and at thy right hand there 
are pleasures for evermore ! " One hour, yea, 
one moment of such bliss as a holy soul enjoys 
outweighs all the pleasures of sin and sense, 
of worldly honor and worldly wealth. But 
when that moment is multiplied into hours, 
and the hours into days, and the days into 
blessed weeks, and months, and years, no 
tongue can tell, no language describe, its rich- 
ness and its fullness. 

2. The bliss arising from this source is tin dis- 
turbed and tcndestroyed by the agitations, the 
turmoils, and trials of life. The religion of the 
Bible is a religion of paradoxes. And among 



Holiness to the Lord, 199 

many others we find this one, " Sorrowful, yet 
always rejoicing;" and another similar to it, 
and yet transcending it in its wonderful utter- 
ance, "Rejoicing in tribulation!' Then we read 
also of the early saints, that they " counted it 
all joy to be worthy to suffer shame for his 
name;" that they "took joyfully the spoiling 
of their goods ; " and that they did not even 
"count their lives dear to themselves." Now, 
if these are not the hallucinations of insane 
minds, they are the utterances of a divine 
religion. It is not claimed that holiness will 
exempt a man from the afflictions and trials of 
life. Indeed, as we have seen, these things are 
often most deeply experienced by the good 
man. It is not this which Christianity claims 
to do for a man. But what it does claim to 
do is this : to make him superior to them ; to 
make him joyful and triumphant in the midst 
of them ; and to make them all, however seem- 
ingly adverse to him, to work out his highest 
good and his greatest bliss. Hence, while all 
around may be turmoil and confusion, while 
cares may come like a wild deluge, and storms 
of sorrow may be falling around him, yet down 
in the depths of his soul there is calm and 



: : : Holiness to the Lord. 

peace. The dark wing of the tempest may 
lash into fury the ocean to the depth of twenty- 
eight or thirty fee:, but below this its forcr is 
unknown and unfelt, and there is naught but 
eternal calm on the bosom of its ever-flowing 
currents. So no storms can shake nor tem- 
:es:s destroy the unutterable joy of the puri- 
fied souL It is just because " there is a river, 
the streams whereof make glad the city of 
God," that saints "will not fear, though the 
earth be removed, though the sea roar, and the 
mountains shake with the swelling thereof, and 
be cast into its troubled depths." For u God is 
in the midst of them ; they shall not be moved : 
God shall help them, and that right early." 
Psa. xlvi 

The martyr s dungeon has been made vocal 
with songs ; and the crackling flames and hiss- 
ing flesh of the dying witness for Jesus and 
his truth at the stake have been hushed by 
the halleluias bursting from his triumphant 
sou! The utter failure of all earthly hopes ; 
the blighting and withering of all earthly j 
the thwarting of our best-concerted plans ; the 
howling blast erf poverty ; the gnawing, wasting 
power of consumption ; the wrenching of rheu- 



Holiness to the Lord. 20 1 

matism ; the agony of neuralgic pains ; and 
even the pang of the separation of soul and 
body, have not been sufficient to destroy the 
bliss which holiness produces, and which arises 
from an indissoluble union with God. 

3. This holiness and this bliss will increase 
forever and ever. In all the successive and 
advancing stages of the believer's experience 
on earth, and through all the cycles of a com- 
ing eternity, they will continue to develop and 
grow, the bliss increasing just in proportion to 
the increase of holiness and purity. And who 
can tell what that will be ? Who can multiply 
infinite bliss by infinite bliss? Who can tell 
how high the soul may rise in the scale of 
purity and blessedness ? God has fixed no 
limit, that we know of, to the soul's growth 
and advancement. He himself is the model 
of holiness ; he himself is the measure of its 
bliss. And while there may be an everlasting 
approximation to his holiness without ever 
attaining to its fullness, so there may be an 
everlasting increase of bliss without ever fully 
fathoming the infinite depths from whence it 
flows. In such blessed contemplations we soon 
lose our soundings. We feel that we are out 



202 Holiness to the Lord. 

upon a shoreless sea, the depths of which we 
can never fully sound, and the breadths of 
which we can never fully explore. Truly, " it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be." But it 
is enough for us to know that " we shall be like 
Him " — like him in our being and our bliss — 
" for we shall see him as he is." But who can 
tell how nearly we shall be " like him ? " Who 
can conceive what will be the bliss of seeing 
" him as he is ? " The most of the views 
which the word of God gives us of the heav- 
enly world are in negative forms, and in contra- 
distinguishment from our present earthly state. 
For instance, it says, " There is no night there ; " 
" there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, 
nor sickness, nor pain," etc. These and kin- 
dred forms of expression are dear and familiar 
to the suffering sons and daughters of our 
humanity. But the positive conditions of that 
future world are not so frequently dwelt upon ; 
mayhap for the reason that we are not so able 
to apprehend or understand them, or even to 
bear to know the weight of their glory. And 
when, in a few instances, these positive con- 
ditions are dwelt upon by the inspired writers, 
it is in language which is perfectly overwhelm- 



Holiness to the Lord. 203 

ing to the human soul : " An exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." Who can com- 
prehend this wonderful utterance ? Our spirit- 
wings in vain endeavor to soar to its illimitable 
heights, and we must wait — wait in patience — 
to know hereafter what we cannot know now 
and here. Well does Bishop Foster say : " Pur- 
sue the upward destiny of a soul brightening 
under the smile of God forever ; see its ever- 
increasing and unfolding beauty ; hear the van- 
ishing melody of its triumphant song. The 
ages flee away ; but, mightier than decay, 
stronger than death, the soul lives on, ascend- 
ing, widening its circle, becoming more and 
more like God, and losing itself ever in his 
ineffable radiance. Such is the destiny of a 
soul washed in the blood of Jesus." * 

* "Christian Purity," p. 323. 



" Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, forever." 

Psalm xc. 5. 

" Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in 
the beauties OF holiness from the womb of the morning: 
thou hast the dew of thy youth.'* — Psalm ex. 5. 

'■ But upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there 
shall be holiness. — Obadiah 17. 

" By strength of ours we naught can do, 

The strife full soon were ended ; 
But for us rights the Champion true, 
By God himself commended. 
And dost thou ask his name ? 
'Tis Jesus Christ ! — The same 
Whom Lord of hosts we call, 
God blessed over all, — 
He'll hold the held triumph: 

Luther. 



Holiness to the Lord. 205 



CHAPTER XV. 

HOLINESS THE GREAT WANT OF THE CHURCH. 

\T TE have now every thing else. In a 
* ^ measure, we have this. But we have it 
not in the degree of fullness and power which 
is needed to enable us to meet our vast respon- 
sibilities and move our ponderous machinery. 
Individual instances of the experience and the 
life of entire holiness are not lacking ; indeed, 
they are multiplying. But it must be conceded 
that the great body of believers, both in the 
ministry and laity, is not sufficiently baptized 
into the spirit of entire holiness. And this is 
what is needed to meet the wants of the great, 
beating, surging heart of the world. That 
heart needs something to catch and hold it in 
its great rebound from idolatry, superstition, 
ceremonialism, and ritualism. And, we con- 
ceive, nothing can do this but holiness. This 
is to be its great center of attraction. All 
else will be of no avail. Fine, costly churches, 
splendid rituals, and gorgeous ceremonials — so 



206 Holiness to the Lord. 

all history assures us — will in the end disgust 
the masses of mankind. But holiness has in it 
no element of destruction, or even of decay. 
It will, it must live. No fires can burn it, nor 
floods whelm it, nor persecutions crush it, nor 
death destroy it. And not only will it live, but 
it will flourish and exert its power in all the 
world. It will so triumph as to constrain a 
godless, a heathen world to acknowledge its 
superiority and its power. 

i. This is wanted in the ministry. The 
priests of Zion, to be efficient, must be " clothed 
with righteousness as with a garment. ,, They 
must be anointed and endowed with the 
"spirit of holiness." It was for them, pri- 
marily, that the Saviour prayed in his interces- 
sory prayer : " Sanctify them through thy truth ; 
thy word is truth." The Lord foreannounced 
by his Prophet, " Behold, I will send my " mes- 
senger, and he shall prepare the way before 
me ; and he shall' sit as a Refiner and Purifier 
of silver ; and he shall purify the sons of Levi," 
or the ministers of his Church, " and purge 
them as gold and silver, that they may offer 
unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." 
Mai. iii, I, 3. There is nothing ministers need 



Holiness to the Lord. 207 

so much as holiness. Well does Rev. James 
Brainerd Taylor write : " Ministers, of all oth- 
ers, should be holy men. Christians every- 
where — and no cotnwion Christians — always set- 
ting an example for the flock to imitate. O for 
perfect love, for complete sanctification for the 
office which awaits us ! " * On a certain Sab- 
bath, when he had heard with delight a minis- 
ter whom he thought had drunk deep at the 
very fountain of holiness, and who lived on 
angels' food, he says : " I came away with the 
conviction that holiness, holiness, is the grand 
secret of effectual preaching."! In anticipa- 
tion of his holy office and work, he says : 
" O it is more and more magnified in my view ! 
And, as it gathers greatness, I long for the 
best qualification for it — holiness. More of 
late than formerly does this subject call forth 
strong cries and tears. I now feel in my soul, 
'Who is sufficient for these things?' Shall I 
be left to prove a drone among the Church's 
watchmen ? Shall I live as I see many minis- 
ters live ! Forbid it, Lord ! They are ciphers 
when they ought to be thousands. And what 
lukewarmness, what apathy, what worldly-mind- 

* Memoirs, pp. 93, 94. f Ibid., p. 314. 



208 Holiness to the Lord. 

edness, pervade candidates for the ministry ! " * 
These are only a few specimens of the views 
which that saintly young minister entertained 
and expressed. It is to be hoped that there 
has been some improvement in the ministers of 
all evangelical Churches since his time, as well 
as in the candidates for the ministry. But how 
great is the need, even now, that the entire 
ministry of the Church should be clad in 
the shining vestments of holiness ! What a 
spirit of consecration would they then exhibit ! 
What zeal, what self-sacrifice, what sympathy, 
what tenderness, what power would they 
possess ! 

It is true that this might create some opposi- 
tion from worldly-minded, formal, or backslid- 
den professors of religion ; but this would not 
hinder the progress of the work of God. Such 
a mighty momentum would be given to the 
cause of the Redeemer that all barriers would, 
sooner or later, be swept out of the way, and 
the Gospel would not only " run? but it would 
also be "glorified" And what an impulse 
would this give to our missionary work ! The 
home-field, kept alive with the " spirit of holi- 

* Memoirs, p. 315. 



Holiness to the Lord, 209 

ness," would readily furnish all needed means 
for the support of that work, and for its enlarge- 
ment and extension, until the last district of 
earth had been visited, and the last heathen 
had heard the sound of the Gospel. And 
more than this. Fervent and effectual prayer 
would be ascending to heaven from millions of 
purified souls for the success of the missionary 
in his work, and for the universal spread of 
the glorious Gospel ; while the missionaries, 
imbued with this same spirit, would toil on 
successfully until " the wilderness and solitary 
places of the world would be glad for them, 
and the deserts would rejoice and blossom as 
the rose. Yea, they would blossom abun- 
dantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing." 
Isa. xxxv, 1, 2. 

2. This, also, is what is wanted in the Church. 
The history of the Church clearly demonstrates 
the fact that, as spiritual vitality and power 
have declined, there has been an effort to substi- 
tute for them -external forms and multiplied ma- 
chinery. And generally, where there has been the 
least of thes-e spiritual elements there has been 
the greatest amount of the material. And just 

now in the Church the same absurd tendencies 

14 



210 Holiness to the Lord. 

are developing themselves. There is almost 
a mania for building costly churches, and for 
the multiplication of machinery in the Sunday- 
school and in the Church. In fact, we have 
more men and money and machinery now 
than we can manage, unless we have more of 
the motive power of holiness. It is a principle 
well understood in mechanics, that the more 
you multiply machinery, unless you increase at 
the same time the motive-power by which it is 
propelled, the more you weaken the motion of 
every wheel and the power of every part. It 
is just so in the Church of God. But in this 
instance there is no lack of motive-power in 
existence, and available ; the want is in the 
establishment of such a connection as will 
bring it to bear on every interest, and make 
efficient every means. Faith in God is the 
bond of connection and union with the sources 
of power, and in proportion as this is weak or 
strong will be the efficiency or the weakness of 
the Church. Excessive ritualism is the legit- 
imate outgrowth of a Church that is dying at 
the heart ; or, perhaps more correctly, it is a 
fungus indicating the corruption and impurity 
of its life-blood. The normal, external condi- 



Holiness to the Lord. 2 1 1 

tion of the Church is the utmost simplicity of 
means and machinery, and its normal state is 
the power of the Holy Ghost moving them 
with resistless energy and efficiency. 

Much is said nowadays about the barren- 
ness of Protestant worship. And, indeed, it is 
the barrenest thing in the world without the 
presence and power of the Holy Spirit. And 
the reason is, simply, because that which is its 
only beauty and glory — namely, its holiness and 
its power — is absent, and there is no splendid 
ceremonial in which to enwrap, as with a sort 
of gilded drapery, its lifeless and " dry-as-dust " 
form. Romanism, the Greek Church, and the 
High Church of England and America, have a 
something which seems in a measure to com- 
pensate them for their loss or lack of spiritual 
vitality. As they have not " the beauty of the 
Lord upon them," they have invented a sort of 
beauty which attracts the eye and ravishes the 
senses. And, as they have ceased to be spirit- 
ual, they have become simply sensuous. But 
Protestantism has really provided for nothing 
of this kind. It has professed to renounce and 
ignore them all. Valuing more the spirituality 
and power of religion, and the manifest pres- 



212 Holiness to the Lord. 

ence of the Lord Jesus in its assemblies, and 
seeking the excelling glory which comes under 
the dispensation of the Spirit, and the rich and 
wonderful displays of his power, then if it de- 
clines from these it loses its real glory and power, 
and falls back upon the baldest and barest 
forms of worship. The whole life, and power, 
and glory, and attractiveness have been elim- 
inated from it ; and her weeping Marys might 
sorrowfully exclaim, " They have taken away 
my Lord, and I know not where they have laid 
him." Such, alas ! is the condition of many of 
our Churches. Many are nothing but skeletons 
without life ; while others, worse still, are only 
" whited sepulchers, full of rottenness and dead 
men's bones." Without holiness, our Churches 
are nothing but a shell. But where this is, 
there " the tabernacle of God is with men." 
There is " a cloud and smoke by day, and the 
shining of a flaming fire by night : for upon 
all the glory shall be a defense." Isa. iv, 5. 

And this is all the glory and defense which 
we need. All else is but shadowy and seem- 
ing. There is in them nothing that is real or 
substantial. Ritualism must, sooner or later, 
dissolve into dust and ashes. A man might as 



Holiness to the Lord, 213 

well try to warm himself by a painted flame, 
or to satisfy his hunger with beautifully-painted 
food and fruits, or to quench his burning thirst 
with the waters of a painted stream. The 
great, burdened, thirsting, dying heart of hu- 
manity never can, and never will, be satisfied 
with these things. It was when the Church 
was clad in its simplest robes, yet empowered 
by the demonstration and might of the Spirit, 
that it shook the world, and turned it upside 
down. We fear that the Church in the present 
time is making many grave, if not fatal, mis- 
takes. The building of costly churches makes 
rich men necessary to us, as the founder of 
Methodism foretold to his people that it would ; 
and some of them have neither a religious, nor 
even a moral, character. Then there is an 
eager seeking after " star-preachers " — " sensa- 
tional men" — to fill up their empty pews. 
And then the introduction of operatic styles of 
music has driven away what little remained of 
spirituality in this part of worship. The idea 
in all these efforts has been to supplement, by 
them and kindred adventitious circumstances, 
the deficiency of holiness in the character and 
in the life. But all these things can only last 



214 Holiness to the Lord. 

for a season. Like any other show or perform- 
ance, we get tired of hearing or seeing it after 
a little time. There must be a return to vital 
godliness, with all its blessed and heavenly 
influences, speedily, or else there will follow on 
rapidly decline, decay, and death. 

3. It is Holiness which is wanted to bring in 
the glories of the millennial era, and which will 
be universal in that era. The ministry and the 
Church thus consecrated, bearing on every 
forehead and every breast, on every heart and 
every life, " Holiness unto the Lord," would 
soon bring in the brightest glories foretold on 
the glowing pages of Isaiah. This would not 
only secure the consecration of talent, but also 
of time, money, and influence, to the cause of 
Christ. There would be no place-seekers, no 
drones, no covetous persons, no idlers in the 
Lord's vineyard. The noblest charities would 
be amply endowed ; and institutions of learn- 
ing, while gathering in all the facts of science, 
and classifying and arranging and illustrating 
every department of God's works, would at the 
same time be nurseries of piety, from which 
our young men and women would go forth bap- 
tized with the spirit of Jesus. Local Churches 



Holiness to the Lord. 215 

would cease their bickerings and fault-findings, 
their envies and jealousies, and expend their 
united energies to build up the cause of God ; 
while the Church, as a whole, with one heart 
and one hand, would move forward mightily 
to assail and carry the very ramparts of the 
enemy. Missionary organizations would have 
all the men and the money, all the means and 
appliances, for the speedy evangelization of the 
world. " Holiness unto the Lord " would be 
written on the heart, "and all the heart goes 
out into, through the brain and the hand ; on 
the plates of gold our age of enterprise is draw- 
ing up from mines and beating into currency ; 
on bales of merchandise and books of account ; 
on the tools and bench of every handicraft ; on 
your weights and measures ; on pen, and plow, 
and pulpit ; on the door-posts of your houses, 
and the utensils of your table, and the walls of 
your chambers ; on cradle, and playthings, and 
school-books ; on the locomotives of enterprise, 
and the bells of the horses, and the ships of 
navigation ; on music-halls and libraries ; on 
galleries of art and lyceum-desks ; on all of 
man's inventing and building, all of his using 
and enjoying ■ for all these are trusts in a stew- 



216 Holiness to tJu L 

ardship, for which the Lord of the servants 
koneth. * 

Thus the glad day would be hastened on 
it voices shall be heard in he; 
g Alleluia : for the Lord God Omnipotent 
reigneth ! " We are praying the Lord to hasten 
on this glorious era, this gladsome period But 
the Lord is commanding us to hasten it on. 
very thing essential for this 
as broken down the barriers. He 
has opened all the doors of the world to us. 
has promised all the aid needed, all the 
power demanded. Now He a may 

so speak, the action of his Church. Like the 
Scottish chieftain, who lay wounded and bleed- 
ing on the field of battle, when he saw his men 

r, and then beginning to retreat in di 

der, he raised himself upon his elbow and called 

out, " I am not dead, my children ; I am only 

hing you t ou do your duty/' At 

rds they rallied and won the fight So 

the great Head of the Church is not dead — he 

alive for evermore. And from his throne 

he is watching to see if his Church will do 

its dutv. O when shall we "awake" at his 

♦Bishop Huntington's " Sermons for the People," p. 101. 



Holiness to the Lord. 217 

inspiring call, and "put on strength, and put 
on our beautiful garments/' and go forward 
grandly to conquer this world for him ! 

But while holiness will be the means of 
hastening on this period, it will be the grand, 
universal characteristic of that millennial era. 
The Prophet Isaiah, foreannouncing that day, 
says, " Thy people, also, shall be all righteoits? 
This indeed is the burden of all the prophecies 
and promises looking toward, or descriptive of, 
that day. Every thing then will be " Holiness 
unto the Lord." Even upon " the bells of the 
horses," emblematical of trade and commerce, 
there shall be written " Holiness unto the 
Lord." Every believer who now comes into 
the experience and enjoyment of holiness has a 
pre-millennial experience. And that which is 
now comparatively isolated and single will then 
be common and universal. O blissful era ! 
O long-prayed-for, long-hoped-for day, dawn 
speedily on our world ! Then peace shall be 
universal. Wars will cease forever. " Swords 
and spears," implements of warfare, " shall be 
beaten into plowshares and pruninghooks," 
implements of agriculture and horticulture. 
" The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the 



2 : B Holit less to the Lord. 

leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the 
calf and the young Hon and the fatling to- 
gether ; and a little child shall lead them. 
And the cow and the bear shall feed ; their 
young ones shall lie down together : and the 
lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suck- 
ing child shall play on the hole of the asp, 
and the weaned child shall put his hand on 
the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor 
destroy in all my holy mountain : for the earth 
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
the waters rover the sea."' Isa xi :-g. The 
earth then will put on its bridal robes. " The 
New Jerusalem" will come down "from God 
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned 
for her husband/' "A great voice" will then 
proclaim, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is 
with men, and he will dwell with them, and 
they shall be his people, and God himself shall 

ith them, and be their God." Then Satan, 
the old dragon, shall be bound during the thou- 
sand glorious years, while Earth will celebrate 
its jubilee. Holiness then will triumph every- 

e All antagonizing influences will be 
destroyed, all opposition will cease forever. 
Its blissful reign will be undisputed and undis- 



Holiness to the Lord. 219 

turbed. And Jesus shall reign for ever and 
ever — for ever and ever. Amen. Halleluia ! 
Amen. 

This is the strain, the eternal strain, the Lord Almighty 
loves : 

Alleluia ! 
This is the song, the heavenly song, that Christ himself 
approves : 

Alleluia ! 
Wherefore we sing, both heart and voice awaking : 

Alleluia ! 
And children's voices answer, echo making : 
Alleluia ! 
Now from all men be outpoured, 
Alleluia to the Lord ; 
With Alleluia evermore, 
The Son and Spirit we adore. 
Praise be done to the Three in One : 
Alleluia ! Alleluia ! Alleluia ! Alleluia ! 
Amen ! 

From Hymn of Tenth Century. 



THE END. 




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